Fascism Then. Fascism Now
Janice
When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
Fascism Then. Fascism Now
By Paul Bigioni
11/27/05 "Toronto Star" -- -- Observing political and economic
discourse in North America since the 1970s leads to an inescapable
conclusion: The vast bulk of legislative activity favours the interests
of large commercial enterprises. Big business is very well off, and
successive Canadian and U.S. governments, of whatever political stripe,
have made this their primary objective for at least the past 25 years.
Digging deeper into 20th century history, one finds the exaltation of
big business at the expense of the citizen was a central characteristic
of government policy in Germany and Italy in the years before those
countries were chewed to bits and spat out by fascism. Fascist
dictatorships were borne to power in each of these countries by big
business, and they served the interests of big business with remarkable
ferocity.
These facts have been lost to the popular consciousness in North
America. Fascism could therefore return to us, and we will not even
recognize it. Indeed, Huey Long, one of America's most brilliant and
most corrupt politicians, was once asked if America would ever see
fascism. "Yes," he replied, "but we will call it anti-fascism."
By exploring the disturbing parallels between our own time and the era
of overt fascism, we can avoid the same hideous mistakes. At present,
we live in a constitutional democracy. The tools necessary to protect
us from fascism remain in the hands of the citizen. All the same, North
America is on a fascist trajectory. We must recognize this threat for
what it is, and we must change course.
Consider the words of Thurman Arnold, head of the Antitrust Division of
the U.S. Department of Justice in 1939:
"Germany, of course, has developed within 15 years from an industrial
autocracy into a dictatorship. Most people are under the impression
that the power of Hitler was the result of his demagogic blandishments
and appeals to the mob... Actually, Hitler holds his power through the
final and inevitable development of the uncontrolled tendency to
combine in restraint of trade."
Arnold made his point even more clearly in a 1939 address to the
American Bar Association:
"Germany presents the logical end of the process of cartelization. From
1923 to 1935, cartelization grew in Germany until finally that nation
was so organized that everyone had to belong either to a squad, a
regiment or a brigade in order to survive. The names given to these
squads, regiments or brigades were cartels, trade associations, unions
and trusts. Such a distribution system could not adjust its prices. It
needed a general with quasi-military authority who could order the
workers to work and the mills to produce. Hitler named himself that
general. Had it not been Hitler it would have been someone else."
I suspect that to most readers, Arnold's words are bewildering. People
today are quite certain that they know what fascism is. When I ask
people to define it, they typically tell me what it was, the assumption
being that it no longer exists. Most people associate fascism with
concentration camps and rows of storm troopers, yet they know nothing
of the political and economic processes that led to these horrible end
results.
Before the rise of fascism, Germany and Italy were, on paper, liberal
democracies. Fascism did not swoop down on these nations as if from
another planet. To the contrary, fascist dictatorship was the result of
political and economic changes these nations underwent while they were
still democratic. In both these countries, economic power became so
utterly concentrated that the bulk of all economic activity fell under
the control of a handful of men. Economic power, when sufficiently
vast, becomes by its very nature political power. The political power
of big business supported fascism in Italy and Germany.
Business tightened its grip on the state in both Italy and Germany by
means of intricate webs of cartels and business associations. These
associations exercised a high degree of control over the businesses of
their members. They frequently controlled pricing, supply and the
licensing of patented technology. These associations were private but
were entirely legal. Neither Germany nor Italy had effective antitrust
laws, and the proliferation of business associations was generally
encouraged by government.
This was an era eerily like our own, insofar as economists and
businessmen constantly clamoured for self-regulation in business. By
the mid 1920s, however, self-regulation had become self-imposed
regimentation. By means of monopoly and cartel, the businessmen had
wrought for themselves a "command and control" economy that replaced
the free market. The business associations of Italy and Germany at this
time are perhaps history's most perfect illustration of Adam Smith's
famous dictum: "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for
merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy
against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."
How could the German government not be influenced by Fritz Thyssen, the
man who controlled most of Germany's coal production? How could it
ignore the demands of the great I.G. Farben industrial trust,
controlling as it did most of that nation's chemical production?
Indeed, the German nation was bent to the will of these powerful
industrial interests. Hitler attended to the reduction of taxes
applicable to large businesses while simultaneously increasing the same
taxes as they related to small business. Previous decrees establishing
price ceilings were repealed such that the cost of living for the
average family was increased. Hitler's economic policies hastened the
destruction of Germany's middle class by decimating small business.
Ironically, Hitler pandered to the middle class, and they provided some
of his most enthusiastically violent supporters. The fact that he did
this while simultaneously destroying them was a terrible achievement of
Nazi propaganda.
Hitler also destroyed organized labour by making strikes illegal.
Notwithstanding the socialist terms in which he appealed to the masses,
Hitler's labour policy was the dream come true of the industrial
cartels that supported him. Nazi law gave total control over wages and
working conditions to the employer.
Compulsory (slave) labour was the crowning achievement of Nazi labour
relations. Along with millions of people, organized labour died in the
concentration camps. The camps were not only the most depraved of all
human achievements, they were a part and parcel of Nazi economic
policy. Hitler's Untermenschen, largely Jews, Poles and Russians,
supplied slave labour to German industry. Surely this was a capitalist
bonanza. In another bitter irony, the gates over many of the camps bore
a sign that read Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work shall set you free." I do
not know if this was black humour or propaganda, but it is emblematic
of the deception that lies at the heart of fascism.
The same economic reality existed in Italy between the two world wars.
In that country, nearly all industrial activity was owned or controlled
by a few corporate giants, Fiat and the Ansaldo shipping concern being
the chief examples of this.
Land ownership in Italy was also highly concentrated and jealously
guarded. Vast tracts of farmland were owned by a few latifundisti. The
actual farming was carried out by a landless peasantry who were locked
into a role essentially the same as that of the sharecropper of the
U.S. Deep South.
As in Germany, the few owners of the nation's capital assets had
immense influence over government. As a young man, Mussolini had been a
strident socialist, and he, like Hitler, used socialist language to
lure the people to fascism. Mussolini spoke of a "corporate" society
wherein the energy of the people would not be wasted on class struggle.
The entire economy was to be divided into industry specific
corporazioni, bodies composed of both labour and management
representatives. The corporazioni would resolve all labour/management
disputes; if they failed to do so, the fascist state would intervene.
Unfortunately, as in Germany, there laid at the heart of this plan a
swindle. The corporazioni, to the extent that they were actually put in
place, were controlled by the employers. Together with Mussolini's ban
on strikes, these measures reduced the Italian labourer to the status
of peasant.
Mussolini, the one-time socialist, went on to abolish the inheritance
tax, a measure that favoured the wealthy. He decreed a series of
massive subsidies to Italy's largest industrial businesses and
repeatedly ordered wage reductions. Italy's poor were forced to
subsidize the wealthy. In real terms, wages and living standards for
the average Italian dropped precipitously under fascism.
Even this brief historical sketch shows how fascism did the bidding of
big business. The fact that Hitler called his party the "National
Socialist Party" did not change the reactionary nature of his policies.
The connection between the fascist dictatorships and monopoly capital
was obvious to the U.S. Department of Justice in 1939. As of 2005,
however, it is all but forgotten.
It is always dangerous to forget the lessons of history. It is
particularly perilous to forget about the economic origins of fascism
in our modern era of deregulation. Most Western liberal democracies are
currently in the thrall of what some call market fundamentalism. Few
nowadays question the flawed assumption that state intervention in the
marketplace is inherently bad.
As in Italy and Germany in the '20s and '30s, business associations
clamour for more deregulation and deeper tax cuts. The gradual erosion
of antitrust legislation, especially in the United States, has
encouraged consolidation in many sectors of the economy by way of
mergers and acquisitions. The North American economy has become more
monopolistic than at any time in the post-WWII period.
U.S. census data from 1997 shows that the largest four companies in the
food, motor vehicle and aerospace industries control 53.4, 87.3 and
55.6 per cent of their respective markets. Over 20 per cent of
commercial banking in the U.S. is controlled by the four largest
financial institutions, with the largest 50 controlling over 60 per
cent. Even these numbers underestimate the scope of concentration,
since they do not account for the myriad interconnections between firms
by means of debt instruments and multiple directorships, which further
reduce the extent of competition.
Actual levels of U.S. commercial concentration have been difficult to
measure since the 1970s, when strong corporate opposition put an end to
the Federal Trade Commission's efforts to collect the necessary
information.
Fewer, larger competitors dominate all economic activity, and their
political will is expressed with the millions of dollars they spend
lobbying politicians and funding policy formulation in the many
right-wing institutes that now limit public discourse to the question
of how best to serve the interests of business.
The consolidation of the economy and the resulting perversion of public
policy are themselves fascistic. I am certain, however, that former
president Bill Clinton was not worried about fascism when he repealed
federal antitrust laws that had been enacted in the 1930s.
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives is similarly unworried about
fascism as it lobbies the Canadian government to water down proposed
amendments to our federal Competition Act. (The Competition Act, last
amended in 1986, regulates monopolies, among other things, and itself
represents a watering down of Canada's previous antitrust laws. It was
essentially rewritten by industry and handed to the Mulroney government
to be enacted.)
At present, monopolies are regulated on purely economic grounds to
ensure the efficient allocation of goods.
If we are to protect ourselves from the growing political influence of
big business, then our antitrust laws must be reconceived in a way that
recognizes the political danger of monopolistic conditions.
Antitrust laws do not just protect the market place, they protect
democracy.
It might be argued that North America's democratic political systems
are so entrenched that we needn't fear fascism's return. The
democracies of Italy and Germany in the 1920s were in many respects
fledgling and weak. Our systems will surely react at the first whiff of
dictatorship.
Or will they? This argument denies the reality that the fascist
dictatorships were preceded by years of reactionary politics, the kind
of politics that are playing out today. Further, it is based on the
conceit that whatever our own governments do is democracy. Canada still
clings to a quaint, 19th-century "first past the post" electoral system
in which a minority of the popular vote can and has resulted in
majority control of Parliament.
In the U.S., millions still question the legality of the sitting
president's first election victory, and the power to declare war has
effectively become his personal prerogative. Assuming that we have
enough democracy to protect us is exactly the kind of complacency that
allows our systems to be quietly and slowly perverted. On paper, Italy
and Germany had constitutional, democratic systems. What they lacked
was the eternal vigilance necessary to sustain them. That vigilance is
also lacking today.
Our collective forgetfulness about the economic nature of fascism is
also dangerous at a philosophical level. As contradictory as it may
seem, fascist dictatorship was made possible because of the flawed
notion of freedom that held sway during the era of laissez-faire
capitalism in the early 20th century.
It was the liberals of that era who clamoured for unfettered personal
and economic freedom, no matter what the cost to society. Such
untrammelled freedom is not suitable to civilized humans. It is the
freedom of the jungle. In other words, the strong have more of it than
the weak. It is a notion of freedom that is inherently violent, because
it is enjoyed at the expense of others. Such a notion of freedom
legitimizes each and every increase in the wealth and power of those
who are already powerful, regardless of the misery that will be
suffered by others as a result. The use of the state to limit such
"freedom" was denounced by the laissez-faire liberals of the early 20th
century. The use of the state to protect such "freedom" was fascism.
Just as monopoly is the ruin of the free market, fascism is the
ultimate degradation of liberal capitalism.
In the post-war period, this flawed notion of freedom has been
perpetuated by the neo-liberal school of thought. The neo-liberals
denounce any regulation of the marketplace. In so doing, they mimic the
posture of big business in the pre-fascist period. Under the sway of
neo-liberalism, Thatcher, Reagan, Mulroney and George W. Bush have
decimated labour and exalted capital. (At present, only 7.8 per cent of
workers in the U.S. private sector are unionized - about the same
percentage as in the early 1900s.)
Neo-liberals call relentlessly for tax cuts, which, in a previously
progressive system, disproportionately favour the wealthy. Regarding
the distribution of wealth, the neo-liberals have nothing to say. In
the end, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. As in Weimar
Germany, the function of the state is being reduced to that of a
steward for the interests of the moneyed elite. All that would be
required now for a more rapid descent into fascism are a few reasons
for the average person to forget he is being ripped off. Hatred of
Arabs, fundamentalist Christianity or an illusory sense of perpetual
war may well be taking the place of Hitler's hatred for communists and
Jews.
Neo-liberal intellectuals often recognize the need for violence to
protect what they regard as freedom. Thomas Friedman of The New York
Times has written enthusiastically that "the hidden hand of the market
will never work without a hidden fist," and that "McDonald's cannot
flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the designer of the U.S. Air Force
F-15." As in pre-fascist Germany and Italy, the laissez-faire
businessmen call for the state to do their bidding even as they insist
that the state should stay out of the marketplace. Put plainly,
neo-liberals advocate the use of the state's military force for the
sake of private gain. Their view of the state's role in society is
identical to that of the businessmen and intellectuals who supported
Hitler and Mussolini. There is no fear of the big state here. There is
only the desire to wield its power. Neo-liberalism is thus fertile soil
for fascism to grow again into an outright threat to our democracy.
Having said that fascism is the result of a flawed notion of freedom,
we need to re-examine what we mean when we throw around the word. We
must conceive of freedom in a more enlightened way.
Indeed, it was the thinkers of the Enlightenment who imagined a
balanced and civilized freedom that did not impinge upon the freedom of
one's neighbour. Put in the simplest terms, my right to life means that
you must give up your freedom to kill me. This may seem terribly
obvious to decent people. Unfortunately, in our neo-liberal era, this
civilized sense of freedom has, like the dangers of fascism, been all
but forgotten.
Paul Bigioni is a lawyer practising in Markham. This article is drawn
from his work on a book about the persistence of fascism.
Copyright Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
abelard
typed:
>FYI,
>
>When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
>troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
>economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
>
>Fascism Then. Fascism Now
you socialists never give up trying to re-write history...
perhaps you imagine no-one will notice that not only italy and germany
were ruled by socialist dictatorships...but also russian and china (still)
amazing the way you keep trying to make false separations...
you either know nothing of hitler or mussolini....
or you are deliberately lying or attempting to mislead...
hitler 1934
"National socialism derives from each of two camps the pure idea that
characterises it:
National resolution from bourgeois tradition;
vital, creative socialism from the teaching of Marxism.
....
The Mussolini of 1944 reasserted the socialist beliefs of his youth
because he now felt he had been cheated by the world of finance and
industry: after having gained immensely from fascism, the capitalists had
secretly sabotaged his movement. To maintain some intellectual coherence
he tried to pretend that,notwithstanding appearances, he had never
deserted the socialist programme he had put forward for fascism in 1919;
he had allowed certain tactical deviations in the interim but for the most
part , his basic views had never changed. In anonymous articles he now
confirmed that he had been right in when, in 1919, he called on the
proletariat to capture power from the capitalists by a bloody revolution.
It was claimed that he had been intending in 1939-40 to carry out a wide
ranging nationalisation of private property and only war had led to its
postponement. he now decreed that all industrial firms employing more than
100 workers would be nationalised. The reassertion of socialism explains
why the person closest to him in 1944-5 to the point of being called the
eminence grise of Salo - was Nicola Bombacci, one of the leaders of the
Italian communist party when it was founded in 1921. Bombacci had once
been a friend and disciple of Lenin and revived the story that, according
to Lenin, Mussolini had been the one serious socialist in Italy. No doubt
the Duce was influenced by Bombacci when he called the fascism of Salo the
only truly socialist government in existence - with the possible exception
of Soviet Russia. [ Mussolini, pp311-312]
business cartels gained from socialism...socialism centralises power in
government...
no-one can study hitler and still believe he wasn't a socialist...it oozes
from his every pore and act....
his actions differ not one jot from other socialist dictatorships...
every socialist administration everywhere destroys wealth...
hey hatstand...where is your mosley and bliar comparison
about time your gave it another airing
bliar is a socialist....
--
web site at www.abelard.org - news and comment service, logic,
energy, education, politics, etc 1,552,207 document calls in year past
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
all that is necessary for [] walk quietly and carry
the triumph of evil is that [] a big stick.
good people do nothing [] trust actions not words
only when it's funny -- roger rabbit
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
George Saden
Janice wrote:
> FYI,
>
> When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
> troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
> economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
What do you mean by nightmare exactly?
We have democracy in the UK now, do you suppose that life is a wonderful
dream here?
It's all very well you living in New Zealand, Australia or Canada, in
lovely surroundings, rather like Peter Jackson's idylic lord of the
rings, talking about dictatorship and fascism, but really what do you do
when societies under democracy break down into insane messes of
political correctness, inverted racism, and other assorted lunacy?
dictatorships rise, when the existing systems fail.
They rise to weld counmties together, wehen they are falling apart.
If you want to find a sae place to live in New Zealand or Canada, you
just hop into your car drive a hundred miles, and find an empty town to
live in, thats far from urban troubles.
Try doing that in the UK these days, and see how your theories about
dictatorship measure up to reality.
Wht do you do, when democracy is proven to be a miserable failure,
and only degeneracy, apathy and politically correct inverted racism are
in the assendency.
You get someone in to fix the mess, thats what you do.
You lot haven't really got any problems where you are in the far flung
dominions, so twittering on about fascism, must be like a hobby to you.
If you want a good taste of democracy, spend two years in London, and
report back to us. If you dare!
Stan Pierce
"George Saden" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:438B6800...@privacy.net...
Well said George. Needed to be said. Keep saying it to them over and over,
they won't learn any other way.
They were told what would happen by Enoch Powell and laughed at him. The
effect of post- war Plenty, and Rock-n-Roll.
What a brainless generation to succeed after so much hardship to keep the
British nation from Germans. The tragedy for us is that we destroyed the very
people who would have saved us from degeneracy.
thing2
I spent 10 years there (London), before that 25 in Britain, so your
point was?
The piece is a quite well thought out explanation IMHO, whether or not
it is (f)actual is another matter.
There certainly seems to be a drive to more and more
police/state/security control with an ever increasing power of large
corporations to dictate the price and availability of goods and
services, a bad sign when democray allows this.
Political correctness and anti-racism chants are usually spouted by
those who see their un-reasonable power over minorities being stipped
off them, christian fundies and the male, white, middle class being
classics....
regards
Thing
DVH
"Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz> wrote in message
news:1133209194.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> In another bitter irony, the gates over many of the camps bore
> a sign that read Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work shall set you free." I do
> not know if this was black humour or propaganda, but it is emblematic
> of the deception that lies at the heart of fascism.
It was pure propaganda. The need to think of the practical and concrete in
order to carry out a job of work makes you free. Processes... procedures...
the only inner life a totalitarian system can tolerate. Dictators have
always hated hippies and their dreamy ways, their music and psychedelia,
thinking thoughts that couldn't be controlled or understood. Work gets rid
of all that, and eliminates any discontent with the environment you might
have. Why are artists and intellectuals persecuted by fascists? Because
they're impractical, unfit for work, and therefore inscrutable and
dangerous. They're not working - in the sense of using a lathe or casting
steel - so they have time to ask questions.
The first inmates who walked into Auschwitz under the slogan Arbeit Macht
Frei were Polish intellectuals. It was a message for them. Later it was a
message for another set of impractical people unsuited to the
repetitiousness of industry and mass-production - the Jews. Fascism needs
work, not intelligence.
<snipped>
George Saden
When?
50 years ago?
20 years ago?
Go and live there now, and you'll find out exactly what my point is, in
very short order.
UKSurvivor
it is the fascists and not the socialists who rise to prominance, at least
the fascists kill fewer innocent people than the socialists do.
George Saden
DVH wrote:
> "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz> wrote in message
> news:1133209194.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
>
>>In another bitter irony, the gates over many of the camps bore
>>a sign that read Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work shall set you free." I do
>>not know if this was black humour or propaganda, but it is emblematic
>>of the deception that lies at the heart of fascism.
>
>
> It was pure propaganda. The need to think of the practical and concrete in
> order to carry out a job of work makes you free. Processes... procedures...
> the only inner life a totalitarian system can tolerate. Dictators have
> always hated hippies and their dreamy ways, their music and psychedelia,
> thinking thoughts that couldn't be controlled or understood. Work gets rid
> of all that, and eliminates any discontent with the environment you might
> have. Why are artists and intellectuals persecuted by fascists? Because
> they're impractical, unfit for work, and therefore inscrutable and
> dangerous. They're not working - in the sense of using a lathe or casting
> steel - so they have time to ask questions.
And all th4se artists and intellectuals, since they are not working, how
do they clothe and feed themselves?
Through leeching off the backs of the proletariat. Parasites, empty
vessels, making the most noise because they have nothing else to do.
Useless lazy, arrogant, irrelevant fluff that exist only on the back of
those who work.
The truth about artists, is that the vast majority of them, are
talentless, worthless skivers, who call themselves artists because it
gives them a validation for why they are incapable of doing anything.
Call yourself an artist and you can get away with anything.
Who needs them? Certainly not the working stiffs, whom the artists
despise anyway.
DVH
> Call yourself an artist and you can get away with anything.
>
> Who needs them? Certainly not the working stiffs, whom the artists
> despise anyway.
See? The propaganda works even today. Plattie's free because he works.
George Saden
Oh no I'm not free, I am bombarded with crappy 'art' from pretentious
advertising 'art' agencies, and then there's tracy emin's dirty sheets,
or damien hurst's formaldehide cows to contend with.
hummingbird
mysteriously appeared thru the usenet mist to inform us thus...
Ave Maria! Here endeth today's history re-write lesson from our very
own lardy who argues that anybody who isn't a neo-con is by definition
a socialist.
--
the fossil media has poured out very little but tripe on irak from day one
the process is moving forward very well.....
...abelard ukpm 18-Jan-05.
Angus
"DVH" <da...@vhvhvhvh.com> wrote in message
news:dmfu4q$8ed$1...@nwrdmz03.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
>
> "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz> wrote in message
> news:1133209194.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>
> > In another bitter irony, the gates over many of the camps bore
> > a sign that read Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work shall set you free." I do
> > not know if this was black humour or propaganda, but it is emblematic
> > of the deception that lies at the heart of fascism.
>
> It was pure propaganda. The need to think of the practical and concrete in
> order to carry out a job of work makes you free. Processes...
procedures...
> the only inner life a totalitarian system can tolerate. Dictators have
> always hated hippies and their dreamy ways, their music and psychedelia,
> thinking thoughts that couldn't be controlled or understood. Work gets rid
> of all that, and eliminates any discontent with the environment you might
> have. Why are artists and intellectuals persecuted by fascists?
Were they?
Hitler was an artist as were a number of other prominent Nazis. And artists
were given prileviledged positions and support by the Nazi state.
SNIP
Angus
"UKSurvivor" <UKSur...@XXX.com> wrote in message
news:dmfv22$b4j$1...@nwrdmz03.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
Well, the fascists were certainly not as effective in killing as have been
the socialists.
In his last days with the Soviets entering Berlin even Hitler is on record
as having praised communism which he then admitted was superior system to
Nazism.
abelard
<ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
typed:
as usual you have no case...
as usual you're all piss and wind...
DVH
"hummingbird" <ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com> wrote in message
news:602no119udqainaer...@4ax.com...
> Ave Maria! Here endeth today's history re-write lesson
Maria? What's she got to do with it?
hummingbird
mysteriously appeared thru the usenet mist to inform us thus...
>"hummingbird" <ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com> wrote in message
Ah meu Deus.
--
"I fear that the Prime Minister has become unhinged.
He has always tended towards being messianic."
-- Michael Portillo on Blair / Sunday Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1879986_1,00.html
hummingbird
typed
typed
typed
typed
typed
As usual you attempt to defend your ludicrous claims by abuse
and distraction. Stick to sorting out your newsreader s/w lardy.
Stan Pierce
"thing2" <nott...@nowhere.commy> wrote in message
news:tp9s53-...@news.vuw.ac.nz...
> I spent 10 years there (London), before that 25 in Britain, so your point was?
>
> The piece is a quite well thought out explanation IMHO, whether or not it is
> (f)actual is another matter.
>
> There certainly seems to be a drive to more and more police/state/security
> control with an ever increasing power of large corporations to dictate the
> price and availability of goods and services, a bad sign when democray allows
> this.
>
> Political correctness and anti-racism chants are usually spouted by those who
> see their un-reasonable power over minorities being stipped off them,
> christian fundies and the male, white, middle class being classics....
>
> regards
>
> Thing
>
Only a wog or a liberal/lefty thinks like you.
Stan Pierce
Good point. Real artists had somehow always managed to feed themselves or have
a rich patron. Now they seem to need 'grants'...another word for welfare.
Stan Pierce
"Angus" <gona...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:438b8a20$1...@news1.veridas.net...
Interesting. Can you quote the source.
h
> On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:11:21 +0000 (UTC), "DVH" <da...@vhvhvhvh.com>
> mysteriously appeared thru the usenet mist to inform us thus...
>
>>"hummingbird" <ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com> wrote in message
>>news:602no119udqainaer...@4ax.com...
>>
>>> Ave Maria! Here endeth today's history re-write lesson
>>
>>Maria? What's she got to do with it?
>
> Ah meu Deus.
>
> --
wrong:-)
Not had much use of Latin for many a long year.
Angus
"Stan Pierce" <ecr...@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:_rOif.6089$ea6....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...
I read it..it was a long time ago...I think in "The Last Days of Hitler"
Hugh Trevor-Roper and he also said if I remember correctly that the German
people were, despite their suffering and the loyalty that they showed and
continued to show until the very end, were unworthy of National Socialism.Of
course, his mental stability was suffering at that late stage just before
his death with the anxiety and knowledge of imminent defeat and plans for
his own suicide.
abelard
<ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
typed:
>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:02:57 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
> typed
> typed
> typed
> typed
> typed
>
>>On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:45:31 +0000, hummingbird
>>>Ave Maria! Here endeth today's history re-write lesson from our very
>>>own lardy who argues that anybody who isn't a neo-con is by definition
>>>a socialist.
>>
>>as usual you have no case...
>>as usual you're all piss and wind...
>
>As usual you attempt to defend your ludicrous claims by abuse
>and distraction. Stick to sorting out your newsreader s/w lardy.
again you flounder around and say.....nothing....
meanwhile since you asked...7000+ document calls yesterday...
joseph....@virgin.net
> On 28 Nov 2005 12:19:54 -0800, "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz>
>
> typed:
>
> >FYI,
> >
> >When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
> >troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
> >economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
> >
> >Fascism Then. Fascism Now
>
> you socialists never give up trying to re-write history...
But surely you regard the re-writing of history as an inevitable,
necessary step?
hummingbird
typed
typed
typed
typd
typed
>On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 23:52:33 +0000, hummingbird
><ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
>
> typed:
>
>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 00:02:57 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>> typed
>> typed
>> typed
>> typed
>> typed
>>
>>>On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 22:45:31 +0000, hummingbird
>
>>>>Ave Maria! Here endeth today's history re-write lesson from our very
>>>>own lardy who argues that anybody who isn't a neo-con is by definition
>>>>a socialist.
>>>
>>>as usual you have no case...
>>>as usual you're all piss and wind...
>>
>>As usual you attempt to defend your ludicrous claims by abuse
>>and distraction. Stick to sorting out your newsreader s/w lardy.
>
>again you flounder around and say.....nothing....
Again, you avoid dealing with the matter in hand.
>meanwhile since you asked...7000+ document calls yesterday...
Actually I didn't ask. Why should I want to know?
joseph....@virgin.net
Seeing that both Hirst and Emin make shedloads of money, I don't see
how they can be described as 'parasites'. They presumably pay
shedloads of taxes.
abelard
<ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
typed:
the matter you have in your hand is of no interest to myself or other
right thinking persons
>>meanwhile since you asked...7000+ document calls yesterday...
>
>Actually I didn't ask. Why should I want to know?
you did....
and yet again you have said nothing of relevant substance....
abelard
typed:
for what possible reason would any sane person re-write history....
regards....
joseph....@virgin.net
> On 29 Nov 2005 02:04:39 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net
>
> typed:
>
> >abelard wrote:
> >
> >> On 28 Nov 2005 12:19:54 -0800, "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz>
> >>
> >> typed:
> >>
> >> >FYI,
> >> >
> >> >When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
> >> >troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
> >> >economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
> >> >
> >> >Fascism Then. Fascism Now
> >>
> >> you socialists never give up trying to re-write history...
> >
> >But surely you regard the re-writing of history as an inevitable,
> >necessary step?
>
> for what possible reason would any sane person re-write history....
According to you, the Japanese whitewashing their atrocities in the WW2
period:
'seems almost a necessary process...
agonising endlessly over past failures is not designed to
give the sheep much get up and go.... '
MM
wrote:
>There certainly seems to be a drive to more and more
>police/state/security control with an ever increasing power of large
>corporations to dictate the price and availability of goods and
>services, a bad sign when democray allows this.
The Tesco juggernaut being a perfect example.
MM
MM
So is your answer to go out and kill your immigrants?
MM
abelard
typed:
ah yes...for political purposes....
i imagined (incautiously) that you meant historians...not politicians....
MM
wrote:
>The truth about artists, is that the vast majority of them, are
>talentless, worthless skivers, who call themselves artists because it
>gives them a validation for why they are incapable of doing anything.
So you would like to live in a world bereft of beautiful things, eh?
No art, no music, no dance, no theatre, no books, no imagination, no
creativity, no design, no hope?
What a hopeless, loveless, horrid world must exist in your mind where
only the treadmill of work is glorified as the be-all and end-all.
Give me artists any day! They work only as much as they need to, not
because of an addiction to obscene greed which is the hallmark of
non-artists.
MM
MM
>Seeing that both Hirst and Emin make shedloads of money, I don't see
>how they can be described as 'parasites'. They presumably pay
>shedloads of taxes.
Often the repudiation of art as epitomised by Saden is merely driven
by the envy of a creative bent that one instinctively knows one does
not possess.
MM
MM
<ecr...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>Good point. Real artists had somehow always managed to feed themselves or have
>a rich patron. Now they seem to need 'grants'...another word for welfare.
Surely this is far too generalised, even for such an obvious
Philistine as your very good self? Are there *no* artists who earn a
decent living from their art?
MM
joseph....@virgin.net
Of course there are; David Hockney, Gilbert & George, Tracey Emin and
Damian Hirst, to name but a few. One wonders also how Stan
discriminates between 'real artists' and 'non-real artists'.
MM
wrote:
>Hitler was an artist
And contrary to popular belief, not a bad one, either. Some of his
works are a damn sight better than many a Tate Modern squiggle. But
it's usually considered infra dig to like anything to do with Hitler.
MM
MM
wrote:
>I read it..it was a long time ago...I think in "The Last Days of Hitler"
>Hugh Trevor-Roper and he also said if I remember correctly that the German
>people were, despite their suffering and the loyalty that they showed and
>continued to show until the very end, were unworthy of National Socialism.Of
>course, his mental stability was suffering at that late stage just before
>his death with the anxiety and knowledge of imminent defeat and plans for
>his own suicide.
I think he was just unduly worried about consummating the marriage.
That kind of stress can be overwhelming.
MM
joseph....@virgin.net
> "DVH" <da...@vhvhvhvh.com> wrote in message
> news:dmfu4q$8ed$1...@nwrdmz03.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
> >
> > "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz> wrote in message
> > news:1133209194.4...@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > > In another bitter irony, the gates over many of the camps bore
> > > a sign that read Arbeit Macht Frei - "Work shall set you free." I do
> > > not know if this was black humour or propaganda, but it is emblematic
> > > of the deception that lies at the heart of fascism.
> >
> > It was pure propaganda. The need to think of the practical and concrete in
> > order to carry out a job of work makes you free. Processes...
> procedures...
> > the only inner life a totalitarian system can tolerate. Dictators have
> > always hated hippies and their dreamy ways, their music and psychedelia,
> > thinking thoughts that couldn't be controlled or understood. Work gets rid
> > of all that, and eliminates any discontent with the environment you might
> > have. Why are artists and intellectuals persecuted by fascists?
>
> Were they?
>
>
> Hitler was an artist as were a number of other prominent Nazis. And artists
> were given prileviledged positions and support by the Nazi state.
But only the right sort of artists, who were prepared to use their art
to glorify the regime (a similar situation existed in Stalinist
Russia). Art also had to be 'realistic' and to serve a moral purpose,
otherwise it was 'degenerate'.
Maria
>MM wrote:
>
>> On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:46:29 GMT, "Stan Pierce"
>> <ecr...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>>
>> >Good point. Real artists had somehow always managed to feed themselves or have
>> >a rich patron. Now they seem to need 'grants'...another word for welfare.
>>
>> Surely this is far too generalised, even for such an obvious
>> Philistine as your very good self? Are there *no* artists who earn a
>> decent living from their art?
>
> Gilbert & George,
Ick
>Tracey Emin
ROFLMAO
abelard
typed:
i am, on good authority, informed that national socialists and other
socialists go for what has been well characterised as the school
labelled 'brutalism'...
this requires ginormous rather crude statues and buildings designed
to last for 1000 years....and plenty of poster painting of the great
father of the nation....
regards,,,
hummingbird
typed
typed
typed
typed
Pah!
>>>meanwhile since you asked...7000+ document calls yesterday...
>>
>>Actually I didn't ask. Why should I want to know?
>
>you did....
Doubtless you can point out where.
>and yet again you have said nothing of relevant substance....
I find it very difficult *to say* anything on Usenet, relevant or
otherwise and writing stuff for your eyes produces no useful ROI.
Like other neo-con fascists you have a rather blinkered vision.
FWIW I've read the original article and find it quite accurately
reflects my own views of the risks of rising fascism in western
democracies under the guise of spreading 'freedom and democracy'.
As I've said for years now, the west is slowly adopting fascist
policies which are themselves a natural result of corporate activity
in the political playground.
It was particularly interesting to see the same fascist techniques
are being used in Canada as in the UK under Blair/US under Bush.
I was also pleased to see the author managed to describe Hitler's
move away from socialism (whilst still preaching it to the electorate)
towards fascism ... something you have yet to accept or understand
for fear that it might cause your own political identity to be
revealed and your continual attempts to re-define socialism/fascism
to be blown wide open.
Get it straight: Hitler started life as a socialist but moved over
to fascism when he got the smell of power in his nostrils. That
often happens as we see in Blair today, although there's still some
way to go and we should never expect to see Blair goosestepping.
What I ***really really *** want to know lardy is this:
Did you also start life as a socialist?
If so, at what point did you become a neo-con fascist?
What caused you to make the switch?
hhmmm.
hummingbird
mysteriously appeared thru the usenet mist to inform us thus...
>On 29 Nov 2005 03:31:38 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net
>
> typed:
>
>>abelard wrote:
>>
>>> On 29 Nov 2005 02:04:39 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net
>>>
>>> typed:
>>>
>>> >abelard wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> On 28 Nov 2005 12:19:54 -0800, "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz>
>>> >>
>>> >> typed:
>>> >>
>>> >> >FYI,
>>> >> >
>>> >> >When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
>>> >> >troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
>>> >> >economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
>>> >> >
>>> >> >Fascism Then. Fascism Now
>>> >>
>>> >> you socialists never give up trying to re-write history...
>>> >
>>> >But surely you regard the re-writing of history as an inevitable,
>>> >necessary step?
>>>
>>> for what possible reason would any sane person re-write history....
>>
>>According to you, the Japanese whitewashing their atrocities in the WW2
>>period:
>>
>>'seems almost a necessary process...
>>agonising endlessly over past failures is not designed to
>> give the sheep much get up and go.... '
>
>ah yes...for political purposes....
>i imagined (incautiously) that you meant historians...not politicians....
Caught with your knickers down again lardy.
abelard
<ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
typed:
>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:24:02 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
> typed
> typed
> typed
> typed
>
>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:26:28 +0000, hummingbird
>>>Again, you avoid dealing with the matter in hand.
>>
>>the matter you have in your hand is of no interest to myself or other
>> right thinking persons
>
>Pah!
well, you would say that...
>>>>meanwhile since you asked...7000+ document calls yesterday...
>>>
>>>Actually I didn't ask. Why should I want to know?
>>
>>you did....
>
>Doubtless you can point out where.
>
>>and yet again you have said nothing of relevant substance....
>
>I find it very difficult *to say* anything on Usenet, relevant or
>otherwise and writing stuff for your eyes produces no useful ROI.
>Like other neo-con fascists you have a rather blinkered vision.
no content...therefore no response...
>FWIW I've read the original article and find it quite accurately
>reflects my own views of the risks of rising fascism in western
>democracies under the guise of spreading 'freedom and democracy'.
that is merely an assertion...
you have indicated no mechanism or process...
>As I've said for years now,
amazing how often you interject that!
>the west is slowly adopting fascist
>policies which are themselves a natural result of corporate activity
>in the political playground.
this adds nothing to your previous assertion....
>It was particularly interesting to see the same fascist techniques
>are being used in Canada as in the UK under Blair/US under Bush.
again, no added value...
>I was also pleased to see the author managed to describe Hitler's
>move away from socialism (whilst still preaching it to the electorate)
>towards fascism
rotf....
no wonder you socialists get in such a lather....
hitler controlled the means of production...he was a socialist by
aspiration and action....
you can put not a sliver between him and stalin or mao or madsam....
and all the sorry crew...
fascism *is* socialism...just another name for socialism....
you appear to be attempting...like all your socialist bretheren....to
introduce distinctions where ther are none in reality....
'it's not real socialism'...the cry of every socialist who has
lost his trousers....
you don't get the difference between corporatism and the corporate state..
(oh, the difference can be a mite subtle...but *in the minds* of its
contending parties is has real meaning)
you don't really get the difference between individualism and
collectivism...a very difficult thing i'll grant for a dogmatist to
imbibe....
you are waffling because you are too confused or lazy minded to
start by setting up useful or meaningful definitions....
until you do that...attempting to compare liberal democracies with
full blown socialist dictatorships is bound to be a futile project...
you may as well try to argue that a bus and a tree are the same
because they are both objects....
like every socialist you attempt to destroy language and meaning
in order to hide your objectives or hide your self from reality...
> ... something you have yet to accept or understand
>for fear that it might cause your own political identity to be
>revealed and your continual attempts to re-define socialism/fascism
>to be blown wide open.
blather...
>Get it straight: Hitler started life as a socialist but moved over
>to fascism when he got the smell of power in his nostrils. That
>often happens as we see in Blair today, although there's still some
>way to go and we should never expect to see Blair goosestepping.
more blather...
hitler carried out his programme continuously without interruption
until the liberal democracies disassembled him and his machine..
with more than a little help from his socialist rival in moscow...
his rival interestingly appealed to nationalism to assist in that task
>What I ***really really *** want to know lardy is this:
>Did you also start life as a socialist?
>If so, at what point did you become a neo-con fascist?
>What caused you to make the switch?
>
>hhmmm.
you are still blathering...
your post is slightly less empty than before because you have
at least sought your kampf for a change...
now build on it...
but can the waffle...it just wastes my purity of essence....
and no...i have never ever been even minimally attracted to your cult...
not for one moment or jot of time....i am not irrational...
i am not now, neither have i ever been, attracted to irrationalism
abelard
<ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
typed:
i actively like making errors...it happens so rarely....
it makes me feel i have more in common with you humans....
abelard
typed:
indeed....
how depressing it is to live in a world of sheep with their
received and pre-digested 'opinions'...
regards...
Crowley
abelard wrote:
> i actively like making errors...it happens so rarely....
> it makes me feel i have more in common with you humans....
Stop putting yourself down Lardarse, even dribbling psycho-geriatric
windbags like you are still human :-)
Eunometic
Janice wrote:
> FYI,
>
> When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
> troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
> economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
>
> Fascism Then. Fascism Now
>
>
> 11/27/05 "Toronto Star" -- -- Observing political and economic
> discourse in North America since the 1970s leads to an inescapable
> conclusion: The vast bulk of legislative activity favours the interests
> of large commercial enterprises. Big business is very well off, and
> successive Canadian and U.S. governments, of whatever political stripe,
> have made this their primary objective for at least the past 25 years.
>
> Digging deeper into 20th century history, one finds the exaltation of
> big business at the expense of the citizen was a central characteristic
> of government policy in Germany and Italy in the years before those
> countries were chewed to bits and spat out by fascism. Fascist
> dictatorships were borne to power in each of these countries by big
> business, and they served the interests of big business with remarkable
> ferocity.
This 'nazis' and big buisiness nonsense get resurected every few years,
mostly by those on the politically lunar left who if they were in power
would end up producing a regime sort of like the one in russia. The
prime motivation is to smear the right with the word 'fascist'
1 The Nazis actually gathered a huge amount of money from donations
small citizen donations.
2 Hitler earned considerable roylaties from his book :"My Struggle"
(Mein Kampf).
The reality is that the corporations only started donating when Hitler
started to become influential and gained power. The "National
Socialist" nationalised some industries and dispossed some owners of
their companies. More or less the capitalists fell into line.
One of the reasons "some" capiatlists supported Hitlers is that he was
an effective counter to the Communists because he could mobilise masses
including workers.
In those day the murderous genocides of russia were being commited by
communists.
The core of national socialism was the belief that capital and labour
could be harmonised through government (and perhaps be knocking heads
together) for the commin good.
A workers representative council works with this idea but a communist
union who is creating inductrial problems beause of his beliefe in
revolutuon and hellish class warfare does not.
hummingbird
typed
typed
typed
typed
>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:22:48 +0000, hummingbird
><ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
>
> typed:
>
>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:24:02 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>> typed
>> typed
>> typed
>> typed
>>
>>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:26:28 +0000, hummingbird
>
>>>>Again, you avoid dealing with the matter in hand.
>>>
>>>the matter you have in your hand is of no interest to myself or other
>>> right thinking persons
>>
>>Pah!
>
>well, you would say that...
Naturally, I often write that in response to your tripe.
>>>>>meanwhile since you asked...7000+ document calls yesterday...
>>>>
>>>>Actually I didn't ask. Why should I want to know?
>>>
>>>you did....
>>
>>Doubtless you can point out where.
Well??? Brain cells playing games again are they?
>>>and yet again you have said nothing of relevant substance....
>>
>>I find it very difficult *to say* anything on Usenet, relevant or
>>otherwise and writing stuff for your eyes produces no useful ROI.
>>Like other neo-con fascists you have a rather blinkered vision.
>
>no content...therefore no response...
Try reading my three lines and stop confusing yourself between
*content* and *what you agree/disagree with*.
>>FWIW I've read the original article and find it quite accurately
>>reflects my own views of the risks of rising fascism in western
>>democracies under the guise of spreading 'freedom and democracy'.
>
>that is merely an assertion...
>you have indicated no mechanism or process...
Eg the invasion of Iraq.
Have you air-brushed that out of your tiny mind already lardy?
There were others before and there'll be others in the future.
Because "george" doesn't wear jackboots and goosestep (afaik), don't
be fooled into arguing that America isn't a fascist-lite nation which
favours Big Money power. It wreaks of fascist policies.
>>As I've said for years now,
>
>amazing how often you interject that!
Because it's true. Very little of what's going on today is new to me.
I've seen/thought about it all before and come to the same conclusions
as before ... I predicted 10 years ago that Britain was moving towards
a more authoritarian form of government. It's happening. I long ago
predicted the fall from empire status of IBM. It happened.
Do not laugh and criticise at those who have better visionary skills
than yourself, that just puts you in the same boat as other dorks.
>>the west is slowly adopting fascist
>>policies which are themselves a natural result of corporate activity
>>in the political playground.
>
>this adds nothing to your previous assertion....
Except that it explains further the method used which you seem
to be demanding.
>>It was particularly interesting to see the same fascist techniques
>>are being used in Canada as in the UK under Blair/US under Bush.
>
>again, no added value...
That's because you're a worthless right-wing-neo-con-dork, aka
fascist-lite. Again, I've said this many times before but James
doesn't seem to agree because of your fake desire for a BoR.
Given political power you would be every bit as authoritarian as Blair
and probably even more war-mongering due to your total belief that
you know better and dissenters have to be crushed. You cannot see
it but you bear similarities to other past socialists turned fascist.
>>I was also pleased to see the author managed to describe Hitler's
>>move away from socialism (whilst still preaching it to the electorate)
>>towards fascism
>
>rotf....
>no wonder you socialists get in such a lather....
>hitler controlled the means of production
Utter rubbish. That's just your re-writing of history.
>...he was a socialist by aspiration and action....
Socialists invariably move to the Right when they get power.
Look at Blair. He was a staunch socialist until he got power, now he's
an authoritarian fascist-lite, moderated by what he can get away with.
>you can put not a sliver between him and stalin or mao or madsam....
> and all the sorry crew...
Utter rubbish. You've been spouting this tripe for yonks.
>fascism *is* socialism...just another name for socialism....
Utter rubbish.
[huge snip of lardy's usual tripe]
>>What I ***really really *** want to know lardy is this:
>>Did you also start life as a socialist?
>>If so, at what point did you become a neo-con fascist?
>>What caused you to make the switch?
>>
>>hhmmm.
>
>you are still blathering...
Why don't you just answer the questions?
--
abelard on the Middle East, Iraq, Palestinians and Vietnam:
the m.e is a cess pit.....that is now going to change...
anyone who gets in the way of that will get crushed..get used to it...
...UKPM 12th Apr 2004.
there are often conflicts...
at least in the short term....bethween hearts and minds and crushing
bastards...
...UKPM 4th Jan 2005.
bush does not look like a quitter....i think the pieces are moving
into place...obviously the jihadi/socialist front will move anything
to stop that....
they must be broken....
...UKPM 4th Jan 2005.
as you will know i take the view vietnam did indeed improve the long
term world....
it impressed there was a price to pay for socialist expansionism....
it was of course but one step in a war that is still under way....
...UKPM 5th Jan 2005.
imv any group can be broken....
the plo have often been sponsored from moscow and by various arab
states seeking profit....
the palestineans have been an uncomprehending tool in the hands
of more ruthless and efficient forces for decades.....
the jordanians have used them...and killed them....
so have syria....so have egypt....and behind much of it, moscow.
...UKPM 5th Jan 2005.
hummingbird
typed
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typed
typed
typed
Rotfl.
abelard
<ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
typed:
>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 13:54:42 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
> typed
> typed
> typed
> typed
>
>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:22:48 +0000, hummingbird
>><ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
>>
>> typed:
>>
>>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 12:24:02 +0100, abelard <abel...@abelard.org>
>>> typed
>>> typed
>>> typed
>>> typed
>>>
>>>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 10:26:28 +0000, hummingbird
>>
>>>>>Again, you avoid dealing with the matter in hand.
>>>>
>>>>the matter you have in your hand is of no interest to myself or other
>>>> right thinking persons
>>>
>>>Pah!
>>
>>well, you would say that...
>
>Naturally, I often write that in response to your trip
your usual contentless evasive blather binned on the most cursory
scan...
only when you produce analysis in place of your raving rhetoric can
you ever be taken with the slightest note....
hummingbird
mysteriously appeared thru the usenet mist to inform us thus...
>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 14:56:02 +0000, hummingbird
Rotfl. Your surrender is accepted, as always.
Crowley
hummingbird wrote:
> Rotfl. Your surrender is accepted, as always.
LOL. Hummingbird wins by a clear knockout and once again Abelard is
revealed to be a vacuous blathering old windbag.
pencil
"MM" <kyli...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
>
> I think he was just unduly worried about consummating the marriage.
> That kind of stress can be overwhelming.
>
> MM
You speak from experience?
George Saden
joseph....@virgin.net wrote:
> George Saden wrote:
>
>
>>DVH wrote:
>>
>>>"George Saden" <m...@privacy.net> wrote in message
>>>news:438B7B1...@privacy.net...
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>Call yourself an artist and you can get away with anything.
>>>>
>>>>Who needs them? Certainly not the working stiffs, whom the artists
>>>>despise anyway.
>>>
>>>
>>>See? The propaganda works even today. Plattie's free because he works.
>>
>>
>>Oh no I'm not free, I am bombarded with crappy 'art' from pretentious
>>advertising 'art' agencies, and then there's tracy emin's dirty sheets,
>>or damien hurst's formaldehide cows to contend with.
>
>
> Seeing that both Hirst and Emin make shedloads of money, I don't see
> how they can be described as 'parasites'. They presumably pay
> shedloads of taxes.
The question is, is what they do really art?
I say no.
Whether they actually earn this money, and whether those who are buying
the art are actually doing anything to deserve that money on this bogus
art is an expansion on the same question. Again, I say no, and it's just
layers of parasites all sucking on the tit of the proles one way or the
other. Just peel back the layers.
George Saden
Where is the creativity in putting a soiled bed, complete with stained
sheets, and used condoms, on a pedestal and calling it art?
Can you ask Tracy and get back to us on that?
George Saden
Damien Hirst and Tracy Emin, are they real artists?
no, they are talentless charlatans. They make money but they don't earn it.
The art game works like this.
Student goes to art college.
Takes lots of drugs, wracks their brain in order to dream up any iold
crap so long as nobody's thought of it before, even putting a used snot
rag in a picture frame and calling it art.
THen the art magazines report this, shock and outrage enues (hopefully
for them), and then the chattering among the morons commenses.
Once an 'artists' name is establihsed, they can litterally do anything,
and the sycophants will nod their heads, and go "yeah", that's great.
Tacy Emin's dirty sheets, well worth half a million pounds.
Fucking idiots.
George Saden
abelard wrote:
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 11:46:33 +0000, MM <kyli...@yahoo.co.uk>
>
> typed:
>
>
>>On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 01:46:29 GMT, "Stan Pierce"
>><ecr...@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Good point. Real artists had somehow always managed to feed themselves or have
>>>a rich patron. Now they seem to need 'grants'...another word for welfare.
>>
>>Surely this is far too generalised, even for such an obvious
>>Philistine as your very good self? Are there *no* artists who earn a
>>decent living from their art?
>
>
> i am, on good authority, informed that national socialists and other
> socialists go for what has been well characterised as the school
> labelled 'brutalism'...
> this requires ginormous rather crude statues and buildings designed
> to last for 1000 years....and plenty of poster painting of the great
> father of the nation....
Rather like that other well known national socialist culture, ancient Rome.
George Saden
wrote:
So, do you disagree that art should serve a moral purpose?
Or do you approve of degenerate art?
DVH
"abelard" <abel...@abelard.org> wrote in message
news:tieoo1l89sfcbatqr...@4ax.com...
> On 29 Nov 2005 02:04:39 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net
>
> typed:
>
> >abelard wrote:
> >
> >> On 28 Nov 2005 12:19:54 -0800, "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz>
> >>
> >> typed:
> >>
> >> >FYI,
> >> >
> >> >When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping
storm
> >> >troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
> >> >economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
> >> >
> >> >Fascism Then. Fascism Now
> >>
> >> you socialists never give up trying to re-write history...
> >
> >But surely you regard the re-writing of history as an inevitable,
> >necessary step?
>
> for what possible reason would any sane person re-write history....
Strange question.
Because new facts emerge?
Because current events force reinterpretation of old facts?
Because the original history was skewed?
abelard
<ZYLYDW...@spammotel.com>
typed:
don't cry buzzy...creepy's on your side....
now you can fish for hakky....
or lonelyme...
or pratt....
know your level buzzy....
know a dork by the company you attract...
abelard
typed:
indeed...
the only trouble comes because you cannot distinguish between
emin and mondrian...
of course neither could the idiot in the tate....
much of the so-called 'art' is in fact a monetary substitute....
it is harder to forge than Łnotes and it tends to have provenance
which stops profligate copying.......
it is not being purchased as 'art'...it is being purchased for
uniqueness and a known signature....other than the depreciated
signature of a boe clerk....
hummingbird
typed
typed
typed
typed
typed
I've already accepted your surrender, there's no need to get bitchy.
I suggest you spend some more time understanding what fascism and
socialism really are, not what you would like them to be.
abelard
typed:
>"abelard" <abel...@abelard.org> wrote in message
>news:tieoo1l89sfcbatqr...@4ax.com...
>> On 29 Nov 2005 02:04:39 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net
>> >abelard wrote:
>> >
>> >> On 28 Nov 2005 12:19:54 -0800, "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz>
>> >>
>> >> typed:
>> >>
>> >> >FYI,
>> >> >
>> >> >When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping
>storm
>> >> >troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
>> >> >economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
>> >> >
>> >> >Fascism Then. Fascism Now
>> >>
>> >> you socialists never give up trying to re-write history...
>> >
>> >But surely you regard the re-writing of history as an inevitable,
>> >necessary step?
>>
>> for what possible reason would any sane person re-write history....
>
>Strange question.
>
>Because new facts emerge?
that is not re-writing...that is adding facts....
>Because current events force reinterpretation of old facts?
example please...
>Because the original history was skewed?
then it is not history...
history is about facts....
too much that is retailed as history is merely just-so stories....
but just-so stories are not history beyond the effects on
idiots unwary enuf to believe in just-so stories...
regards...
Janice
thing2 wrote:
>
> The piece is a quite well thought out explanation IMHO, whether or not
> it is (f)actual is another matter.
Which facts in particular do you want?
Chapter 7 - "Riddle of the Rhine " [1919] indicates the deliberate
patent grabbing and trade restraint the German chemical/dye cartel were
busily engaged in, in the US, Britain and France for 20 years or
more prior to World War One.
pp 151 onward shows how the gigantic German industrial cartels were
formed and the lead role they took in preparing and launching
warfare on an unsuspecting world ---a dozen years before Hitler had
even been heard of.
thing2
> "thing2" <nott...@nowhere.commy> wrote in message
> news:tp9s53-...@news.vuw.ac.nz...
>
>>I spent 10 years there (London), before that 25 in Britain, so your point was?
>>
>>The piece is a quite well thought out explanation IMHO, whether or not it is
>>(f)actual is another matter.
>>
>>control with an ever increasing power of large corporations to dictate the
>>price and availability of goods and services, a bad sign when democray allows
>>this.
>>
>>Political correctness and anti-racism chants are usually spouted by those who
>>see their un-reasonable power over minorities being stipped off them,
>>christian fundies and the male, white, middle class being classics....
>>
>>regards
>>
>>Thing
>>
>
>
> Only a wog or a liberal/lefty thinks like you.
>
>
uh huh.....
or maybe a mainstream person, unlike a kooky person like you.
regards
Thing
thing2
>
>
> thing2 wrote:
>
>> George Saden wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Janice wrote:
>>>
>>>> FYI,
>>>>
>>>> When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping storm
>>>> troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
>>>> economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> We have democracy in the UK now, do you suppose that life is a
>>> wonderful dream here?
>>>
>>> It's all very well you living in New Zealand, Australia or Canada, in
>>> lovely surroundings, rather like Peter Jackson's idylic lord of the
>>> rings, talking about dictatorship and fascism, but really what do you
>>> do when societies under democracy break down into insane messes of
>>> political correctness, inverted racism, and other assorted lunacy?
>>>
>>> dictatorships rise, when the existing systems fail.
>>> They rise to weld counmties together, wehen they are falling apart.
>>>
>>> If you want to find a sae place to live in New Zealand or Canada, you
>>> just hop into your car drive a hundred miles, and find an empty town
>>> to live in, thats far from urban troubles.
>>>
>>> Try doing that in the UK these days, and see how your theories about
>>> dictatorship measure up to reality.
>>>
>>> Wht do you do, when democracy is proven to be a miserable failure,
>>> and only degeneracy, apathy and politically correct inverted racism
>>> are in the assendency.
>>>
>>> You get someone in to fix the mess, thats what you do.
>>>
>>> You lot haven't really got any problems where you are in the far
>>> flung dominions, so twittering on about fascism, must be like a hobby
>>> to you.
>>>
>>> If you want a good taste of democracy, spend two years in London, and
>>> report back to us. If you dare!
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I spent 10 years there (London), before that 25 in Britain, so your
>> point was?
>
>
>
> 50 years ago?
> 20 years ago?
> Go and live there now, and you'll find out exactly what my point is, in
> very short order.
>
No where near, maybe your version of reality is distorted.
regards
Thing
DVH
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 19:44:28 +0000 (UTC), "DVH" <da...@vhvhvhvh.com>
>
> typed:
>
> >"abelard" <abel...@abelard.org> wrote in message
> >news:tieoo1l89sfcbatqr...@4ax.com...
> >> On 29 Nov 2005 02:04:39 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net
>
> >> >abelard wrote:
> >> >
> >> >> On 28 Nov 2005 12:19:54 -0800, "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz>
> >> >>
> >> >> typed:
> >> >>
> >> >> >FYI,
> >> >> >
> >> >> >When people think of fascism, they imagine rows of goose-stepping
> >storm
> >> >> >troopers and puffy-chested dictators. What they don't see is the
> >> >> >economic and political process that leads to the nightmare.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >Fascism Then. Fascism Now
> >> >>
> >> >> you socialists never give up trying to re-write history...
> >> >
> >> >But surely you regard the re-writing of history as an inevitable,
> >> >necessary step?
> >>
> >> for what possible reason would any sane person re-write history....
> >
> >Strange question.
> >
> >Because new facts emerge?
>
> that is not re-writing...that is adding facts....
When you add new facts (as long as they're important), your interpretation
of the old facts is likely to change.
Here's somebody adding some important facts about the number deaths in the
peeps rep of china
"some other scholars and researchers had put the PRC total as from
60,000,000 to a high 70,000,000. Asked why my total is so low by comparison,
I've responded that I did not include the China's Great Famine 1958-1961...
Others, however, have so counted it, but I thought this was a sloppy
application of the concepts of mass murder, genocide, or politicide
(virtually no one used the concept of democide). They were right and I was
wrong.
...the famine was intentional."
http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/11/democide.html
>
> >Because current events force reinterpretation of old facts?
>
> example please...
French revolution? Bliss it was... until it turned a bit less blissful.
Fall of Communism? Yeay, everyone's free and the right people are in
government... until it turned out the people in power before were the people
in power after (with a few exceptions).
> >Because the original history was skewed?
>
> then it is not history...
>
> history is about facts....
Nope, that's archaeology. History's about chaps: You can line as many facts
up as you want, but they're meaningless (except to trainspotters) until you
know what was going on in peoples' heads.
> too much that is retailed as history is merely just-so stories....
> but just-so stories are not history beyond the effects on
> idiots unwary enuf to believe in just-so stories...
Well that's stating the obvious.
abelard
typed:
what do you mean by 'interpreting facts'...and what would your purpose be
in doing that...
again, example please...
>Here's somebody adding some important facts about the number deaths in the
>peeps rep of china
>
>"some other scholars and researchers had put the PRC total as from
>60,000,000 to a high 70,000,000. Asked why my total is so low by comparison,
>I've responded that I did not include the China's Great Famine 1958-1961...
>
>Others, however, have so counted it, but I thought this was a sloppy
>application of the concepts of mass murder, genocide, or politicide
>(virtually no one used the concept of democide). They were right and I was
>wrong.
>
>...the famine was intentional."
>http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/11/democide.html
ok and passable to a point...
i don't really see any re-writing there....just defining your terms,
clarifying your understandings and building your/a data base....
the word 'deliberate' in the above perhaps could stand some defining...
>> >Because current events force reinterpretation of old facts?
>>
>> example please...
>
>French revolution? Bliss it was... until it turned a bit less blissful.
>
>Fall of Communism? Yeay, everyone's free and the right people are in
>government... until it turned out the people in power before were the people
>in power after (with a few exceptions).
why the rush to judgements? why the on/off 'logic'.....
doubtless 'things' improved after john was persuaded to sign magna
carta...but john still had a place at the trough....
the frog rev just changed the faces at the trough...revolutions tend
to do that...and result in a lot of pain and hassle....
>> >Because the original history was skewed?
>>
>> then it is not history...
>>
>> history is about facts....
>
>Nope, that's archaeology. History's about chaps: You can line as many facts
>up as you want, but they're meaningless (except to trainspotters) until you
>know what was going on in peoples' heads.
there is no possible reliable way in which you may know what is
going on in people's heads....
most people don't even have much idea of what is going on
in their own heads...
>> too much that is retailed as history is merely just-so stories....
>> but just-so stories are not history beyond the effects on
>> idiots unwary enuf to believe in just-so stories...
>
>Well that's stating the obvious.
ok....
but you seem to be prepared to participate in what you now
seems to acknowledge to be idiocy....
am i misreading sommat in your text...
ps...your posts on this interest me....
Janice
Janice wrote:
Another interesting book is "Treason's Peace" written by Howard Walter
Ambruster sometime in the 1930s[?.] . Ambruster testified to the
American Senate in 1930. He said, " the American people will be
astounded and shocked by the uncovering of tentacles of the German I.G
in every element of our social order in the United States at this
time."
<
http://www.maebrussell.com/Articles%20and%20Notes/Treason%27s%20Peace%20-%20Inside%20flap.html>
It doesnt take a rocket scientist to recognise the same patterns of
trade restraints, patent grabbing and mergering perpetrated by IG
ssfrom 1900 onward in preparation for world war, is similar to those
patterns discerned in unrestrained corporate behaviour in the
world today.
DVH
Oh come on, you know perfectly well what I mean. At a basic level, taking
fact A, adding fact B and drawing your conclusions. Gwilym the baker went to
his village church. His village church was Methodist. A historian interprets
this as meaning Gwilym was a methodist, poor bloke.
Purpose: writing history. Don't make your traps too easy, please.
> again, example please...
>
> >Here's somebody adding some important facts about the number deaths in
the
> >peeps rep of china
> >
> >"some other scholars and researchers had put the PRC total as from
> >60,000,000 to a high 70,000,000. Asked why my total is so low by
comparison,
> >I've responded that I did not include the China's Great Famine
1958-1961...
> >
> >Others, however, have so counted it, but I thought this was a sloppy
> >application of the concepts of mass murder, genocide, or politicide
> >(virtually no one used the concept of democide). They were right and I
was
> >wrong.
> >
> >...the famine was intentional."
>
>http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/11/democide.html
>
> ok and passable to a point...
> i don't really see any re-writing there....just defining your terms,
> clarifying your understandings and building your/a data base....
> the word 'deliberate' in the above perhaps could stand some defining...
You mean "intentional"? Yes it could, and that would mean interpreting the
facts listed 1 to 7 in the article plus Chang and Halliday.
>
> >> >Because current events force reinterpretation of old facts?
> >>
> >> example please...
> >
> >French revolution? Bliss it was... until it turned a bit less blissful.
> >
> >Fall of Communism? Yeay, everyone's free and the right people are in
> >government... until it turned out the people in power before were the
people
> >in power after (with a few exceptions).
>
> why the rush to judgements? why the on/off 'logic'.....
Why indeed? They're not my judgements, but I'd hazard optimism followed by
observation of additional facts.
> doubtless 'things' improved after john was persuaded to sign magna
> carta...but john still had a place at the trough....
>
> the frog rev just changed the faces at the trough...revolutions tend
> to do that...and result in a lot of pain and hassle....
Sure, but I think you've missed my (doubtless badly-expressed) point. The Fr
Rev. caused enormous amounts of history-writing from day one. A lot of it
interpreted events completely differently to how they were interpreted 15,
or 100 years later.
>
> >> >Because the original history was skewed?
> >>
> >> then it is not history...
> >>
> >> history is about facts....
> >
> >Nope, that's archaeology. History's about chaps: You can line as many
facts
> >up as you want, but they're meaningless (except to trainspotters) until
you
> >know what was going on in peoples' heads.
>
> there is no possible reliable way in which you may know what is
> going on in people's heads....
Why so? "Nationalism was at the bottom of the great war" ... "Patriotism
motivated the French against the Prussians" ... "Tories are conservative
people" and so on. If you can't say that sort of thing, might as well pack
up and go home.
> most people don't even have much idea of what is going on
> in their own heads...
>
> >> too much that is retailed as history is merely just-so stories....
> >> but just-so stories are not history beyond the effects on
> >> idiots unwary enuf to believe in just-so stories...
> >
> >Well that's stating the obvious.
>
> ok....
> but you seem to be prepared to participate in what you now
> seems to acknowledge to be idiocy....
>
> am i misreading sommat in your text...
Maybe. Hopefully clearer from the above.
> ps...your posts on this interest me....
Naturally. It's theory, and you're a theoretician at heart ;-)
thing2
> thing2 wrote:
>
>
>>The piece is a quite well thought out explanation IMHO, whether or not
>>it is (f)actual is another matter.
>
>
>
> Which facts in particular do you want?
It is written by someone who was not there, so it is an opinion based on
available historical data that has been interperated. As they say who
ever wins the war writes its history.
> Chapter 7 - "Riddle of the Rhine " [1919] indicates the deliberate
> patent grabbing and trade restraint the German chemical/dye cartel were
> busily engaged in, in the US, Britain and France for 20 years or
> more prior to World War One.
1919 is pre-hitler, so the cartels were alreday in place. While Germany
went facist, the others did not. This could be attributed to colonialism
and not facism.
> pp 151 onward shows how the gigantic German industrial cartels were
> formed and the lead role they took in preparing and launching
> warfare on an unsuspecting world ---a dozen years before Hitler had
> even been heard of.
>
> http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=LefRidd.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=7&division=div1
>
Unable to get this link to come up. It certainly does not match my
reading of pre-ww2 history.
regards
Thing
thing2
Now I think you are getting into kooky Janet.
I wouldnt think any business in its right mind would want a war, damages
its goods and autonimus abilites too much. More likely the conventional
history is correct, businesses went along with Governments as there was
no alternative.
regards
Thing
abelard
typed:
i wish!
> At a basic level, taking
>fact A, adding fact B and drawing your conclusions. Gwilym the baker went to
>his village church. His village church was Methodist. A historian interprets
>this as meaning Gwilym was a methodist, poor bloke.
an assumption...possible a reasonable assumption...
>Purpose: writing history. Don't make your traps too easy, please.
i'm not attempting to 'tap' you...i'm attempting to understand your
semantics in the hope of then interpreting your words!
>> again, example please...
>>
>> >Here's somebody adding some important facts about the number deaths in
>the
>> >peeps rep of china
>> >
>> >"some other scholars and researchers had put the PRC total as from
>> >60,000,000 to a high 70,000,000. Asked why my total is so low by
>comparison,
>> >I've responded that I did not include the China's Great Famine
>1958-1961...
>> >
>> >Others, however, have so counted it, but I thought this was a sloppy
>> >application of the concepts of mass murder, genocide, or politicide
>> >(virtually no one used the concept of democide). They were right and I
>was
>> >wrong.
>> >
>> >...the famine was intentional."
>>
>>http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2005/11/democide.html
>>
>> ok and passable to a point...
>> i don't really see any re-writing there....just defining your terms,
>> clarifying your understandings and building your/a data base....
>> the word 'deliberate' in the above perhaps could stand some defining...
>
>You mean "intentional"?
indeed i do
>Yes it could, and that would mean interpreting the
>facts listed 1 to 7 in the article plus Chang and Halliday.
ah, i'm meant to scan/read that..ok away i go...done...
ok....
now that i would call updating/improving the data base...not re-writing
but clarifying understanding....
so, it looks like *at least* some of my problem is with the term
're-writing'...i tend to associate it with falsification....
eg typical socialist re-writing history as propaganda.....
what lipstadt in her subtitle accurately and succinctly called
'the growing assault on truth and memory'
>> >> >Because current events force reinterpretation of old facts?
>> >>
>> >> example please...
>> >
>> >French revolution? Bliss it was... until it turned a bit less blissful.
>> >
>> >Fall of Communism? Yeay, everyone's free and the right people are in
>> >government... until it turned out the people in power before were the
>people
>> >in power after (with a few exceptions).
>>
>> why the rush to judgements? why the on/off 'logic'.....
>
>Why indeed? They're not my judgements, but I'd hazard optimism followed by
>observation of additional facts.
ok...
>> doubtless 'things' improved after john was persuaded to sign magna
>> carta...but john still had a place at the trough....
>>
>> the frog rev just changed the faces at the trough...revolutions tend
>> to do that...and result in a lot of pain and hassle....
>
>Sure, but I think you've missed my (doubtless badly-expressed) point. The Fr
>Rev. caused enormous amounts of history-writing from day one. A lot of it
>interpreted events completely differently to how they were interpreted 15,
>or 100 years later.
ok....so a further part of my problem with you seems to be an
attempt to get you to separate the idea of history from the
idea of 'interpretation'...
which i am cruelly castigating as just-so stories....
your comments on this bit solicited....
>> >> >Because the original history was skewed?
>> >>
>> >> then it is not history...
>> >>
>> >> history is about facts....
>> >
>> >Nope, that's archaeology. History's about chaps: You can line as many
>facts
>> >up as you want, but they're meaningless (except to trainspotters) until
>you
>> >know what was going on in peoples' heads.
>>
>> there is no possible reliable way in which you may know what is
>> going on in people's heads....
>
>Why so? "Nationalism was at the bottom of the great war" ... "Patriotism
>motivated the French against the Prussians" ... "Tories are conservative
>people" and so on. If you can't say that sort of thing, might as well pack
>up and go home.
i don't agree...i regard such generalisations as mostly slop....
as a loose eg...most people in the great war probably fought because
they perceived themselves as having little choice....
you can't see 'patriotism' in a person's head....defining it then becomes
a more difficult project than you may suggest (don't tell hakky
though!)....
then attributing it as some universal (generalisation) to some inchoate
herd becomes (to me) rather farcical as useful description...
(ie....again, a just-so story)
even tautology...
>> most people don't even have much idea of what is going on
>> in their own heads...
>>
>> >> too much that is retailed as history is merely just-so stories....
>> >> but just-so stories are not history beyond the effects on
>> >> idiots unwary enuf to believe in just-so stories...
>> >
>> >Well that's stating the obvious.
>>
>> ok....
>> but you seem to be prepared to participate in what you now
>> seems to acknowledge to be idiocy....
>>
>> am i misreading sommat in your text...
>
>Maybe. Hopefully clearer from the above.
looks like forward mov't to me...but the journey has a way to go....
>> ps...your posts on this interest me....
>
>Naturally. It's theory, and you're a theoretician at heart ;-)
not really...i'm an engineer at heart...
an engineer in the repairing of poorly functioning machines
labelled humans...
anything you may imagine to be 'theory' is merely the maths/
logic required to discuss with other machines the sub-optimal
functioning of their machinery....or more generally the repairing of
the logic/functioning of such machines
my only interest in 'theory' is as a means to doing the engineering....
when i came upon the job i decided the area was pre-scientific...
i set about ordering it for useful examination and clear discussion/
description...
Stan Pierce
(snipped)
> Another interesting book is "Treason's Peace" written by Howard Walter
> Ambruster sometime in the 1930s[?.] . Ambruster testified to the
> American Senate in 1930. He said, " the American people will be
> astounded and shocked by the uncovering of tentacles of the German I.G
> in every element of our social order in the United States at this
> time."
I get the impression you are reading History without supervision. I'm glad you
are reading History but there is a danger of only seeing what an interesting
writer tells you as fact and excluding what another interesting writer might
tell you is fact. For instance, have you read any History or the period
written by a German author. It sometime alters the whole view of the world.
George Saden
So let me guess, you lived in Darket Hackney for 5 years, and never once
had threats levelled against your person, or felt intimidated, well
let's see. You couldn't possibly have been out and about in Darkest
Hackney, Lewisham, North Peckham, or Tottenham, otherwise you'd
definitely have spotted some of these irregularities, a man of your
education.
Hampstead garden suburbs eh?
DVH
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 23:10:32 +0000 (UTC), "DVH" <da...@vhvhvhvh.com>
>
> >Yes it could, and that would mean interpreting the
> >facts listed 1 to 7 in the article plus Chang and Halliday.
>
> ah, i'm meant to scan/read that..ok away i go...done...
> ok....
> now that i would call updating/improving the data base...not re-writing
> but clarifying understanding....
>
> so, it looks like *at least* some of my problem is with the term
> 're-writing'...i tend to associate it with falsification....
> eg typical socialist re-writing history as propaganda.....
I thought as much, and I agree there's been a lot of that. But it's possible
to write rigorous history and interpret the facts in more than one way. I
believe Hobsbawm would be an example of this, though it's a while since I
tried to read him. Neither of us would particularly like his interpretation
of the facts of - say - the nineteenth century, but I doubt we'd be able to
take issue with the facts behind his version.
>
> what lipstadt in her subtitle accurately and succinctly called
> 'the growing assault on truth and memory'
OK, that reminds me of another example, which you might know - Hitler's
Willing Executioners. I haven't read it, but that doesn't matter because the
point is made: It's a reinterpretation of known facts.
Fine. Show me a history book which doesn't interpret, and I'll show you a
book which most people call science. It's been tried, and I don't know of
anybody who's succeeded. Part of the "interpretation" process involves
selecting facts, which has obvious consequences...
>
> your comments on this bit solicited....
>
> >> >> >Because the original history was skewed?
> >> >>
> >> >> then it is not history...
> >> >>
> >> >> history is about facts....
> >> >
> >> >Nope, that's archaeology. History's about chaps: You can line as many
> >facts
> >> >up as you want, but they're meaningless (except to trainspotters)
until
> >you
> >> >know what was going on in peoples' heads.
> >>
> >> there is no possible reliable way in which you may know what is
> >> going on in people's heads....
> >
> >Why so? "Nationalism was at the bottom of the great war" ... "Patriotism
> >motivated the French against the Prussians" ... "Tories are conservative
> >people" and so on. If you can't say that sort of thing, might as well
pack
> >up and go home.
>
> i don't agree...i regard such generalisations as mostly slop....
> as a loose eg...most people in the great war probably fought because
> they perceived themselves as having little choice....
Your interpretation, and a generalisation you regard as slop. I might agree,
but still...
> you can't see 'patriotism' in a person's head....defining it then becomes
> a more difficult project than you may suggest (don't tell hakky
> though!)....
> then attributing it as some universal (generalisation) to some inchoate
> herd becomes (to me) rather farcical as useful description...
> (ie....again, a just-so story)
> even tautology...
Like I say, you might as well pack up and go home. If I read you correctly,
organising the facts becomes impossible because there are too many of them.
> >> most people don't even have much idea of what is going on
> >> in their own heads...
> >>
> >> >> too much that is retailed as history is merely just-so stories....
> >> >> but just-so stories are not history beyond the effects on
> >> >> idiots unwary enuf to believe in just-so stories...
> >> >
> >> >Well that's stating the obvious.
> >>
> >> ok....
> >> but you seem to be prepared to participate in what you now
> >> seems to acknowledge to be idiocy....
> >>
> >> am i misreading sommat in your text...
> >
> >Maybe. Hopefully clearer from the above.
>
> looks like forward mov't to me...but the journey has a way to go....
>
> >> ps...your posts on this interest me....
> >
> >Naturally. It's theory, and you're a theoretician at heart ;-)
>
> not really...i'm an engineer at heart...
A subset of theory. You like systems, rules which apply here and therefore
may apply elsewhere, truths demonstrable in the physical world.
Which of course means I'm flogging a dead horse, because I know you'll never
believe "history's about chaps". Shame really, because you're missing 90% of
the good and *useful* stuff. You have the bark better than most, but not the
pith.
joseph....@virgin.net
> wrote:
> > Angus wrote:
> >
> >>
> >>
> >>Hitler was an artist as were a number of other prominent Nazis. And artists
> >>were given prileviledged positions and support by the Nazi state.
> >
> >
> > But only the right sort of artists, who were prepared to use their art
> > to glorify the regime (a similar situation existed in Stalinist
> > Russia). Art also had to be 'realistic' and to serve a moral purpose,
> > otherwise it was 'degenerate'.
>
> So, do you disagree that art should serve a moral purpose?
Art and morality have nothing to do with each other.
> Or do you approve of degenerate art?
Define 'degenerate'.
joseph....@virgin.net
>
> indeed...
> the only trouble comes because you cannot distinguish between
> emin and mondrian...
> of course neither could the idiot in the tate....
>
> much of the so-called 'art' is in fact a monetary substitute....
> which stops profligate copying.......
> it is not being purchased as 'art'...it is being purchased for
> uniqueness and a known signature....other than the depreciated
> signature of a boe clerk....
But artistic merit is in any case entirely subjective. Why is Mondrian
'better' than Emin? Is there an artistic merit gauge somewhere that
enables you to rank artists in ascending order of 'goodness' (however
defined)? What about those artists (incliding Mondrian, Cezanne, Van
Gogh) derided by the contemporary establishment but now lauded as
geniuses? Did their work suddenly acquire artistic merit at a
particular point in the history of art?
George Saden
Says who?
>>Or do you approve of degenerate art?
>
>
> Define 'degenerate'.
Tracy Emin.
joseph....@virgin.net
George Saden wrote:
> joseph....@virgin.net wrote:
> > George Saden wrote:
> >
> >>wrote:
> >>
> >>>Angus wrote:
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>>Hitler was an artist as were a number of other prominent Nazis. And artists
> >>>>were given prileviledged positions and support by the Nazi state.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>But only the right sort of artists, who were prepared to use their art
> >>>to glorify the regime (a similar situation existed in Stalinist
> >>>Russia). Art also had to be 'realistic' and to serve a moral purpose,
> >>>otherwise it was 'degenerate'.
> >>
> >>So, do you disagree that art should serve a moral purpose?
> >
> >
> > Art and morality have nothing to do with each other.
>
>
> Says who?
Says me. You asked for my opinion!
> >>Or do you approve of degenerate art?
> >
> >
> > Define 'degenerate'.
>
>
> Tracy Emin.
Well, I don't like her art, but I wouldn't describe it as 'degenerate'.
joseph....@virgin.net
> "abelard" <abel...@abelard.org> wrote in message
> news:htspo1t9h06n3cmjo...@4ax.com...
> > not really...i'm an engineer at heart...
>
> A subset of theory. You like systems, rules which apply here and therefore
> may apply elsewhere, truths demonstrable in the physical world.
>
> Which of course means I'm flogging a dead horse, because I know you'll never
> believe "history's about chaps". Shame really, because you're missing 90% of
> the good and *useful* stuff. You have the bark better than most, but not the
> pith.
Which is odd, because much of abelard's site consists of stuff about
particular 'chaps'.
History is re-written all the time, for a variety of reasons, such as:
a) new facts are discovered, which upset previous understanding of
events
b) the previous 'version' of history becomes unacceptable in some way;
eg Empire-building is portayed a Good Thing or a Bad Thing depending on
the prevailing belief system
c) one regime succeeds another and seeks to blacken the reputation of
the previous regime
Some of this is 'political' re-writing, some the result of attempts by
scholars to 'improve' the historical record, but quite often the two
are intertwined; thus the record of Stalin's misdeeds was incomplete
partly because of censorship in the USSR, but also, during the war
years, because Stalin was an essential ally against Hitler.
'Freedom fighters' are re-badged as 'terrorists' and vice-versa; a king
is condemed as a despot by one historian and praised as a firm ruler by
another; revolutions are seen as radical changes in the social order,
only to be downgraded to a re-shuffle at the top a few decades later.
Not only is history about chaps, it is *written* by chaps, so until we
get a sophisticated computer able to digest all known facts about the
past and come up with an objective analysis of what happened and why,
history will continue to be mutable and subjective.
Janice
Stan Pierce wrote:
> "Janice" <jgr...@ec.auckland.ac.nz> wrote in message
> news:1133304606.8...@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> (snipped)
> > Another interesting book is "Treason's Peace" written by Howard Walter
> > Ambruster sometime in the 1930s[?.] . Ambruster testified to the
> > American Senate in 1930. He said, " the American people will be
> > astounded and shocked by the uncovering of tentacles of the German I.G
> > in every element of our social order in the United States at this
> > time."
>
> I get the impression you are reading History without supervision.
You mean, I'm reading history without 'your' supervision, Stan! :-)
If you take issue with either Ambruster or Victor Lefebure's version
of events then why not make a list so we can discuss and debate your
problems. What, after all, is there to take issue with?
Did the German chemical companies take out patents over many and
varied pharmaceuticals, chemical compounds, and gases? Yes. Did they
also ensure that France, UK and America would be on the backfoot in the
event of war and have to play catchup. Yes. Did IG manufacture the
poison gases used on Allied troops during WW1.
Yes. Did the same clique of big business industrialists have an
inordinate amount of influence over Germany before during and after
WW1. Yes. Did this influence continue throughout the twenties and
thirties. Yes. Did big business help lift Hitler into power. Yes.
You see Stan. It is all perfectly simple.
Janice
joseph....@virgin.net wrote:
I put up my hand. I have digested all known facts and having cast my
judicious eye down the lens of history have thusly decided that events
leading up to World War One and World War Two are not quite what they
seem. :-)
Janice
thing2 wrote:
Thanks.
>
> I wouldnt think any business in its right mind would want a war,
How naive.
Greg Muttitt's bombshell paper confirms what many have long suspected
-- the big US and UK companies have enormous interest in Iraq's giant
untapped oilfields. He shows clearly how the companies have been
angling to gain control of those fields and now, under the occupation,
they are closing in on their goal. Production Sharing Agreements, the
companies' favorite legal ploy, have already been negotiated with
pliant Iraqi officials. Likely to be rushed-through after the December
2005 elections, these contracts may lock Iraq into decades-long
arrangements that siphon as much as $200 billion from the Iraqi
government into company coffers.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/2005/crudedesigns.htm
abelard
typed:
>abelard wrote:
>>
>> indeed...
>> the only trouble comes because you cannot distinguish between
>> emin and mondrian...
>> of course neither could the idiot in the tate....
>>
>> much of the so-called 'art' is in fact a monetary substitute....
>> it is harder to forge than Łnotes and it tends to have provenance
>> which stops profligate copying.......
>> it is not being purchased as 'art'...it is being purchased for
>> uniqueness and a known signature....other than the depreciated
>> signature of a boe clerk....
>
>But artistic merit is in any case entirely subjective. Why is Mondrian
>'better' than Emin?
for many reasons on many levels....
but where to start....
this is just more of the defining of words to meaninglessness in order
to avoid judgement....
i don't really know which way to tackle it *with you*
a major part of art appreciation is to see enuf of it....
say you are dealing with a botanist or an opal hunter....
at first it all looks like a mush...but gradually you can discern
patters as your mind/eye becomes trained.....
you can pick out an unusual plant from among the clutter almost
without effort...same with an opal among the other rocks....
as for the artists you mention..they were in fact fairly rapidly
recognised, though not immediately as they were rather radical
relative to their time....
some discerning buyers collected them quite early and ended up
with fortunes in art....
but beyond this, the artists often knew and valued the work of
contemporaries before wider acceptance....
as for fakes like emin etc...
a major element is the have no craft skills worth a damn....
you wouldn't buy a cabinet or a woven basket from them....
a major artist has two major elements....
1)craft skills....
2)something to communicate
stack the likes of emin and hirst (later work) against these two
criteria....(hirst does of course have some craft skills that may
be useful in a biolab neatly embedding samples in plastic)
you wouldn't even usually buy a book if it wasn't bound to stay
together and was not covered in mud and wrinkled from a
good soaking....
aside: i should have previously mentioned that much modern pseudo-
'art' is bought and sold for publicity...not for merit....
the objective is to 'shock' (the idiots)...thus much fossil media
column inches are generated in faux outrage to bring the attention
of the weak minded to a person who wants to be a face....
eg saatchi or the faker who ran the tate....
meanwhile emin or hirst become part of the circus....
warhol's 15 minutes of fame...famous for being famous....
it is as simple as this....
as 'artists' their 'work' is trash....it'll be gone in a few years...
but the work of mondrian and the other will live on because it has real
artistic meaning and message....
even picasso joined the circus for money....
and a very great deal of this is about money...not art...
it is advertising...not art in any serious sense....
just another (crude) sensation for jaded and ignorant palates....
but if you can't pick out an opal because you don't have the
experiences of viewing thousands of rocks...
you won't produce jewellery....
no, it is not 'just a matter of taste'
it is a matter of competence, judgement and standards...
> Is there an artistic merit gauge somewhere that
>enables you to rank artists in ascending order of 'goodness' (however
>defined)? What about those artists (incliding Mondrian, Cezanne, Van
>Gogh) derided by the contemporary establishment but now lauded as
>geniuses? Did their work suddenly acquire artistic merit at a
>particular point in the history of art?
no...it was always (eventually...they did not start at the top...they
had to work outrageously hard)...it was always brilliant work...
it still is...it will be a hundred years on....
i've learned a very great deal from mondrian....
and much from the other 2...
i have learned absolutely nothing from emin or hirst (later 'work')
there is nothing of depth or substance there...a butcher or a
chambermaid could as well have had their 'name's' attached to
the fakery....
regards...
MM
wrote:
>
>
>MM wrote:
>> On 29 Nov 2005 02:27:58 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Seeing that both Hirst and Emin make shedloads of money, I don't see
>>>how they can be described as 'parasites'. They presumably pay
>>>shedloads of taxes.
>>
>>
>> Often the repudiation of art as epitomised by Saden is merely driven
>> by the envy of a creative bent that one instinctively knows one does
>> not possess.
>
>
>
>
>
>Where is the creativity in putting a soiled bed, complete with stained
>sheets, and used condoms, on a pedestal and calling it art?
>Can you ask Tracy and get back to us on that?
On this one you are dead right. But Tracy is not the only artist, or
pretend one.
MM
MM
wrote:
>Fucking idiots.
You see! You've discovered art! Fucking idiots would go down a bomb
nowadays. There was a film, much derided, on the telly in the 1970s in
which one young extremely retarded girl was brought back to sanity by
intense fondling of the penetrative kind.
MM
MM
>But only the right sort of artists, who were prepared to use their art
>to glorify the regime (a similar situation existed in Stalinist
>Russia). Art also had to be 'realistic' and to serve a moral purpose,
>otherwise it was 'degenerate'.
And Tony Blair has the Dome. Not quite the Kremlin or Palace of
Versailles, but it's a roof over one's head, I suppose.
MM
MM
wrote:
>So, do you disagree that art should serve a moral purpose?
Art should serve no purpose whatsoever. It just "is". If enough people
considered a straight line as art, then it would be art, at least as
far as they were concerned. Art if merely an expression of what some
people call the soul. To appreciate any art you have to have one of
the latter, of course.
MM
MM
>Well, I don't like her art, but I wouldn't describe it as 'degenerate'.
Actually, it was her he was describing as degenerate, which I believe
could be construed as libellous.
MM
DVH
<joseph....@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:1133342470.0...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> DVH wrote:
>
> > "abelard" <abel...@abelard.org> wrote in message
> > news:htspo1t9h06n3cmjo...@4ax.com...
> > > not really...i'm an engineer at heart...
> >
> > A subset of theory. You like systems, rules which apply here and
therefore
> > may apply elsewhere, truths demonstrable in the physical world.
> >
> > Which of course means I'm flogging a dead horse, because I know you'll
never
> > believe "history's about chaps". Shame really, because you're missing
90% of
> > the good and *useful* stuff. You have the bark better than most, but not
the
> > pith.
>
> Which is odd, because much of abelard's site consists of stuff about
> particular 'chaps'.
I know, I'm being pretty unfair to him, aren't I?
> History is re-written all the time, for a variety of reasons, such as:
>
> a) new facts are discovered, which upset previous understanding of
> events
> b) the previous 'version' of history becomes unacceptable in some way;
> eg Empire-building is portayed a Good Thing or a Bad Thing depending on
> the prevailing belief system
> c) one regime succeeds another and seeks to blacken the reputation of
> the previous regime
But abe sees this as history in the service of ideology at best, and plain
ole bullshit at worst. I like your empire-building example though.
MM
<pencil...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>"MM" <kyli...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote
>
>>
>> I think he was just unduly worried about consummating the marriage.
>> That kind of stress can be overwhelming.
>>
>> MM
>
>You speak from experience?
Indeed. Forced to marry the ugly bitch at the barrel of a shotgun, and
I'm expected to do the business as well? Excuse me if I don't rise to
the occasion. And then the bastards have to go and invent Viagra!
MM
Stan Pierce
.If only it was. You make facts sound like pejoratives. Business interests
have ALWAYS accompanied EVERY event in history. It is the nature of people
with surplus capital to look at life in a very pragmatic way and invest in the
flow of things.
You want a war...we will provide the means. Without the means, nothing
happens. So it's not a revelatory thing to say big business had an inordinate
amount of influence on Germany.
So what you are saying is general knowledge to everyone. Nothing new in it.
I would take a break from the Business / Conspiratorial line of thought and look
at the Kaiser's attitude to Russia and France and Belgium. Look at the period
as a time when Democracy was regarded with much contempt, especially with so
many Crowned Kings in Europe.
Power struggle was the norm of European life. It didn't matter to Kings
whether what they dreamt about in the way of power was frowned upon by
'reasonable' people. Reasonable people had no power and influence. This
is forgotten about nowadays, but you have to look at history in THEIR
TERMS...not today's.
Personal hatreds of Kings towards other Kings did more to destabilise Europe
more than any businessman. Take time out and follow this up and see if it
modifies your attitude.
joseph....@virgin.net
> <joseph....@virgin.net> wrote in message
> news:1133342470.0...@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> > History is re-written all the time, for a variety of reasons, such as:
> >
> > a) new facts are discovered, which upset previous understanding of
> > events
> > b) the previous 'version' of history becomes unacceptable in some way;
> > eg Empire-building is portayed a Good Thing or a Bad Thing depending on
> > the prevailing belief system
> > c) one regime succeeds another and seeks to blacken the reputation of
> > the previous regime
>
> But abe sees this as history in the service of ideology at best, and plain
> ole bullshit at worst. I like your empire-building example though.
The objective 'truth' of historical events is always filtered through
the subjective views of those observing/recording it. The only
'objective' history is, as you indicated, simple chronology, and even
this must be selective and thus subject to filtering. It's not like
science, where there's a more or less 'correct' answer to a particular
problem.
Janice
Eunometic wrote:
>
> 1 The Nazis actually gathered a huge amount of money from donations
> small citizen donations.
Can you show us how small citizen donations maintained Hitler's private
army?
> 2 Hitler earned considerable roylaties from his book :"My Struggle"
> (Mein Kampf).
Up until 1930 Hitler sold only 54,000 copies of Mein Kampf yet this is
the period of inexplicable wealth - a brand new chauffered Mercedes, a
uniformed, well nourished
transport driving private army of around 100,000 soldiers and
owndership of various propangandist organs.
>
> The reality is that the corporations only started donating when Hitler
> started to become influential and gained power.
Yet Victor LeFebure shows in minute detail how the huge German
chemical industrialists had planned, manufactured and organised
warfare for two decades prior to WW1.
Did IG just toss in the towel afterward, or did they, like Krupps
et al, begin planning for the next war immediately in the aftermath..
Of course they did. They wanted Germany to be the worlds greatest
Empire and saw themselves as leaders of that empire.. They schemed,
planned, spied, and sent their networks to the US to retard the US war
effort just as they had done prior to WW1 and they drew a whole
coterie of US, European, Japanese and UK banks, financial institutions
and industrial corporations into the cartelised behemoth and pulled
the draw strings close. The cartel represented, after all, the
worlds finest banking and industrial elite.
Imagine then, the scarey propaganda coup for Stalin and communism
post-war if the truth about capitalism's real role in Hitler's war
was publicised. Every Allied country would have been threatened by
socialist revolution if that role in WW2 was fully appreciated by
returning Allied and even German soldiers.. The Allied leaders had to
hush it up. The cold war was manufactured and capitalisms role in
Hitlers war machine, was hastily revised.
Hitler could have marched on Poland without the Swiss banks but not
without the tanks and jeeps courtesy of General Motors, while IG
Farben followed the army wherever it went in Europe buying up companies
dirt cheap, under threat of bringing in the soldiers if the directors
displayed any reluctance.
DVH
<joseph....@virgin.net> wrote in message
news:1133339925.8...@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
abelard wrote:
>
> indeed...
> the only trouble comes because you cannot distinguish between
> emin and mondrian...
> of course neither could the idiot in the tate....
>
> much of the so-called 'art' is in fact a monetary substitute....
> which stops profligate copying.......
> it is not being purchased as 'art'...it is being purchased for
> uniqueness and a known signature....other than the depreciated
> signature of a boe clerk....
>
> But artistic merit is in any case entirely subjective.
Pfft. Relativist nonsense. The logical thing to conclude from that statement
is that you like all painting, music and art equally, whether it's So Solid
Crew or Scarlatti. Is that true? I doubt it. If it's not true, why not?
Because you prefer one to the other. This means you must have a scale of
values, even if you, personally, have never spent any time working out what
it is. And if you have a scale of values, artistic merit can't be
subjective. QED.
<bows>
> Why is Mondrian
'better' than Emin? Is there an artistic merit gauge somewhere that
enables you to rank artists in ascending order of 'goodness' (however
defined)? What about those artists (incliding Mondrian, Cezanne, Van
Gogh) derided by the contemporary establishment but now lauded as
geniuses?
What about them. They were lonely geniuses ahead of their peers, so of
course they were derided. Eventually everyone else caught up.
> Did their work suddenly acquire artistic merit at a
particular point in the history of art?
No, it's a gradual process, similar to any change in thinking. Churchill
spent his time in the wilderness until everyone else caught up with him. But
also, most artists need their interpreters - the critics who "get it" and
can articulate what it means to people like us. Some have to wait centuries
before the right person comes along.
Janice
Stan Pierce wrote:
Only because you people argue so much. It is the denials that are so
difficult to deal with.
Business interests
> have ALWAYS accompanied EVERY event in history.
No argument.
It is the nature of people
> with surplus capital to look at life in a very pragmatic way and invest in the
> flow of things.
> You want a war...we will provide the means. Without the means, nothing
> happens. So it's not a revelatory thing to say big business had an inordinate
> amount of influence on Germany.
Good.
>
> So what you are saying is general knowledge to everyone.
It should be but it isnt. See the years and years of timewasting on
this issue, for example
Nothing new in it.
> I would take a break from the Business / Conspiratorial line of thought and look
> at the Kaiser's attitude to Russia and France and Belgium.
The Kaisers attitude to Russia France and Belgium cannot be immediately
translated into the callous butchery being perpetrated in Iraq. I am
not interested in WW1 and 2 for their own sake but for what I see in
the world now, Stan. You may be comfortingly thickskinned but every
human being is my sister and my brother. I feel their pain..
joeh
> On 30 Nov 2005 00:38:45 -0800, joseph....@virgin.net
>
> typed:
> >But artistic merit is in any case entirely subjective. Why is Mondrian
> >'better' than Emin?
>
> for many reasons on many levels....
> but where to start....
> to avoid judgement....
> i don't really know which way to tackle it *with you*
>
> a major part of art appreciation is to see enuf of it....
>
> say you are dealing with a botanist or an opal hunter....
> at first it all looks like a mush...but gradually you can discern
> patters as your mind/eye becomes trained.....
> you can pick out an unusual plant from among the clutter almost
> without effort...same with an opal among the other rocks....
>
> as for the artists you mention..they were in fact fairly rapidly
> recognised, though not immediately as they were rather radical
> relative to their time....
> some discerning buyers collected them quite early and ended up
> with fortunes in art....
> but beyond this, the artists often knew and valued the work of
> contemporaries before wider acceptance....
>
> as for fakes like emin etc...
> a major element is the have no craft skills worth a damn....
> you wouldn't buy a cabinet or a woven basket from them....
But how do you know this? Picasso was an excellent draughstman, but
you would never guess it from his non-representational work.
> a major artist has two major elements....
> 1)craft skills....
> 2)something to communicate
OK...
> stack the likes of emin and hirst (later work) against these two
> criteria....(hirst does of course have some craft skills that may
> be useful in a biolab neatly embedding samples in plastic)
>
> you wouldn't even usually buy a book if it wasn't bound to stay
> together and was not covered in mud and wrinkled from a
> good soaking....
Too many negatives there; you imply I would only buy a book if it *was*
covered in mud and wrinkled from a long soaking!
> aside: i should have previously mentioned that much modern pseudo-
> 'art' is bought and sold for publicity...not for merit....
> the objective is to 'shock' (the idiots)...thus much fossil media
> column inches are generated in faux outrage to bring the attention
> of the weak minded to a person who wants to be a face....
> eg saatchi or the faker who ran the tate....
> meanwhile emin or hirst become part of the circus....
But the old epater les bourgeoisie stuff has been going on for over a
century - viz Magritte, Duchamps, Dali. Are they 'major' artists in
your personal canon, or fakers?
> warhol's 15 minutes of fame...famous for being famous....
> it is as simple as this....
> as 'artists' their 'work' is trash....it'll be gone in a few years...
> but the work of mondrian and the other will live on because it has real
> artistic meaning and message....
So if the art of Emin and Hirst is still valued in 100 years time, it
will qualify as 'real'?
> even picasso joined the circus for money....
> and a very great deal of this is about money...not art...
> it is advertising...not art in any serious sense....
>
> just another (crude) sensation for jaded and ignorant palates....
>
> but if you can't pick out an opal because you don't have the
> experiences of viewing thousands of rocks...
> you won't produce jewellery....
>
> no, it is not 'just a matter of taste'
> it is a matter of competence, judgement and standards...
But whose standards?
> > Is there an artistic merit gauge somewhere that
> >enables you to rank artists in ascending order of 'goodness' (however
> >defined)? What about those artists (incliding Mondrian, Cezanne, Van
> >Gogh) derided by the contemporary establishment but now lauded as
> >geniuses? Did their work suddenly acquire artistic merit at a
> >particular point in the history of art?
>
> no...it was always (eventually...they did not start at the top...they
> had to work outrageously hard)...it was always brilliant work...
> it still is...it will be a hundred years on....
>
> i've learned a very great deal from mondrian....
> and much from the other 2...
> i have learned absolutely nothing from emin or hirst (later 'work')
> there is nothing of depth or substance there...a butcher or a
> chambermaid could as well have had their 'name's' attached to
> the fakery....
Well, as far as the visual arts are concerned I'm a cheerful
philistine; I know what I like and that tends to be 'realistic' art up
to, say, the Impressionists. If it looks 'nice' it's good art by my
standards. And yet I know people whose knowledge of art (and ability
to do arty/crafty things) far exceeds my own, who claim that Emin is
indeed a major artist and that those who disparage her are akin to
those who decried Picasso's abstract art because they failed to
'understand' it.