Showing posts with label
I Can't Believe It's Not Hotter.
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Showing posts with label
I Can't Believe It's Not Hotter.
Show all posts
Eco-sustainable Planned-opolis....
I was going to compare and contrast competing Visions of the Future by pasting up the Suicide Booth scene from Futurama, but the only online clip I could find that hasn't been taken down by the copyright bots was in Czech
Mind you, whilst unintelligible, it does have a charm of its own
And one of these days I would like to sit down and compile a list of all the characteristics of the genre of propagandistic film-making that I will forever associate with the Blair years in the UK.
There's a shared look and sound to the style of films I have in mind and they are often associated with the kind of 'Common Purpose'-esque, public-private initiatives which piss me off something rotten - however mumsy the voice over
Whilst I appreciate that many loons out there like to describe this propaganda as 'communist' or 'marxist', they're wrong. It is the product of an unholy merger of corporate and state power, and that is fascism, well mostly
I appreciate that it's easier for people who don't see themselves as lefties to identify anything they perceive as evil as being 'Marxist' or 'communist' (and for lefties to identify anything evil as being 'fascist') but the situation is a little more complicated than simplistic use of poorly defined or understood terms like 'Marxism' is capable of describing
The fact that unaccountable foundations, pressure groups and think tanks, like the one that made the video at the top of this post, are funded by big corporations as well as government should be a bit of a fucking clue as to the nature of The Beast.
If your definition of communism encompasses activities that are promoted by and benefit large, privately owned corporations and billionaire individuals it might be worth your while contemplating the internal contradictions in that point of view. I can understand how people might argue that a bastardised form of communism might, like so many other 'isms', be co-opted as a tool of those private corporations and billionaires but are those corporations and billionaires themselves communist? What word would you, should you use to describe them?
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edit:
whoopsies, looks like someone's forgot to, er, 'correct' the file history...
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Normal service on this blog continues to be hampered by the fact that I've moved halfway around the world, am still looking for a home and a job and can only access the internet whilst peering at a poxy little netbook hooked up to a modem/ internet connection that would have been laughably inadequate ten years ago...
but
there's no way I'm going to pass by on the opportunity to link to this little gem which will delight George Monbiot fans worldwide (and cheers to Parabellum, yet again, for the heads up)...
How to disprove Christopher Booker in 26 seconds
Arctic ice levels above average? Perhaps the Telegraph's columnist should take just half a minute to check the facts
A more accurate title for Monbiot's article would be something along the lines of 'How to make yourself look like a Complete Dick in 26 seconds', or as George himself admitted in more round about terms...
Now, much as I hate myself for saying so, we all make mistakes and George did fess up pretty quickly
Mind you, the red, trident wielding, pixie standing on my right shoulder is whispering in my ear to remind me that George's article was presented as a personal attack on Christopher Booker, so it's actually perfectly fair game to point out that Monbiot is an utter, utter tosser
and a wrong tosser at that
but that's all by the by
The really disturbing thing, and this has been a constant theme of this blog, is the uncritical, faith-based, adulation poured on Monbiot by his genuinley adoring commentators underneath
There's also the usual tediously involved debate, along the lines of how many angels can you fit on a pin head, about completely irrelevant, inconclusive trivia which virtually all on-line 'discussions' about Man Made (?) Climate Change inevitably degrade into
The interesting, and disturbing, thing is, of course, is that the fact that even though Monbiot is actually demonstrably and self-admittedly wrong in this case, that news will make absolutely no difference to people who commented positively about his article before George admitted to his error
as Parabellum said when pointing me towards Monbiot's article...
"Why do people don't see that they *themselves* can fall prey to heuristics and biases? Why do many many people think that only *other* people make mistakes? On the other hand, I try to stay critical of my own judgement but this is not very healthy if overdone. Sometimes I envy people that are so sure of themselves that they can ignore all the mistakes they make..."
If there's one common denominator connecting themes and ideas discussed on this blog it's the mischievous thought that, actually, if you look closely, and objectively enough at most things that 'every rational personal knows to be True', be they 'shit just happens' based explanations of human events or sacred scientific theories which are venerated as religious dogma, they all pretty much turn out to be bollocks
Which is only fair enough
Every generation that's ever lived before Us based their lives on belief in an awful lot of bollocks which was subsequently proven to be bollocks
So why should We be any different?
Well, except for George Monbiot followers, they're obviously different, and a little bit special
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