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    #26
    Moth and Eton: you are dead on correct

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      #27
      Originally posted by Nocturnal Submission View Post
      I wondered whether this would make an appearance when I saw the thread title - I went to school with Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq and am still good friends with him. We were all pleasantly bemused when this became a huge social media & youtube hit earlier in the year

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        #28
        with the answer being "because of the perception that conditions aren't improving fast enough,"
        Yeah there's something in that. Times of radical progress are usually in times of an upswing, when people grasp possibilities and protest about being diddled out of them. Downturns tend to favour the reactionary right, as we've seen since 2008.

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          #29
          My students grew up in the age of a Black President but also with belief that the "war on terror" was perfectly normal. My biggest fear is that they will never want to give up the consumer culture that drives environmental destruction.

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            #30
            There's also a bit of a worry that too many have grown up accepting the idea that they have no rights at work and must accept being treated like shit to get on. But I think we're seeing some decent kickback against that, now it's so much more obvious that they're being conned.

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              #31
              Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post
              At the risk of sounding like Whitney Houston, I've confidence in our kids and the generation of young adults below us.
              That's true and should always be the case. But without wanting to be a downer it was also said of my generation when we were in our teens and twenties, particularly by those on the left. Now however we're the generation that burned our children's birthright in an orgy of self indulgence and greed. Circumstance changes everything. While hope is essential predictions can be entertaining but are almost always wrong.

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                #32
                Originally posted by Bruno
                It's tough to fight for workers' rights when you're hugely preoccupied with not finding good work despite a university degree (plus debt).
                Spot on.

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                  #33
                  https://twitter.com/coldwaruk/status...206900737?s=09
                  I had two copies of this booklet issued by the late lamented Cleveland County Council detailing what would happen if a single device landed on Middlesbrough town hall. We were reputed to be the second top target due to the chemical works etc.

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                    #34
                    That makes me feel much better. So I'll go out and buy a new Mercedes.

                    But, seriously, rationally I know that's the case but I still can't help recalling the words of Captain America at the end of Easy Rider, "We blew it Billy."

                    We should have done more with the advantages we had. The world you leave ought to be better than the one you entered, and I don't think it will be.
                    Last edited by Amor de Cosmos; 06-09-2019, 15:42.

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                      #35
                      I dunno Amor. We were always outnumbered. It wasn't like we didn't try.

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                        #36
                        Originally posted by Voidoid View Post

                        I wondered whether this would make an appearance when I saw the thread title - I went to school with Thomas Benjamin Wild Esq and am still good friends with him. We were all pleasantly bemused when this became a huge social media & youtube hit earlier in the year
                        I'm very curious about why this performance is happening in what appears to be a Brooks Brothers outlet.

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                          #37
                          I do think there's something quite resonant and profound in Danny the drug dealer out of Withnail's end-of-the-sixties lament: "The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over - and we have failed to paint it black."

                          All before my time, mind. Though picking up on what Bruno and Amor have been talking about, the peculiar short-term complacent cockiness of the Nineties explains a lot about what my own generation are like now. And how reactionary they've become (or rather, always were to an extent)

                          Comment


                            #38
                            Has any generation not "blown it?" None of the ones I know about did everything they could, collectively, to stop the next disaster and some did more than others to bring it on. And yet we're still here and a lot of things have gotten better, for people, at least.

                            I do think the sea levels are going to rise a lot, billions of people will be displaced or suffer more than they are already - and I say that knowing that where I live will be relatively unharmed so let me know if you want to stay in my spare rooms - the rainforest will be a savanna, and millions of species will go extinct. If and/when that happens, will rapacious capitalism/industrialism finally be discredited? If it isn't, we really could see the complete collapse of civilization for a while. That might not be the worst thing, really. Easy for me to say, I probably won't be here.

                            If it is, we can start over. We can re-terraform our planet somewhat. It may take hundreds of years and it will be different than what we had before, but the species will survive or, better yet, be displaced by a better one. And new species will emerge or we can help to engineer new ones. And hopefully not eat them.

                            I also really like the Expanse idea that a new culture will arise in the solar system and be built around trying not to repeat the mistakes of earth (but make new ones instead) Not sure if or when that could happen. There'd have to be some economic reason to build sizable colonies on the moon or Mars and we're a long way from that. Or maybe new cultures will arise in places like Greenland or the north of Canada as more people move there. Of course, there are cultures there already and I'm not saying they should be wiped out, but the people who move there

                            One thing that might be good about capitalism is that over the long-run there's not a lot of money to be made betting on a lie. There sure as hell is in the short-run, especially if you can buy off the government the way the Kochs have, but ultimately capitalism is run on gambling and if you want the most objective prediction of a football game, you don't ask ex-players and TV pundits, you ask the Vegas guys. What savvy rich guy would, for example, bet that Miami won't be underwater in 20 years just to appease his Republican friends? Even the UAE is planning on climate change (https://www.thenational.ae/uae/abu-d...evels-1.701438)

                            Eventually the smart money will bet on renewables, etc, if it isn't already, and climate denial just won't be financially tenable. Brazil, for example, isn't just fucking the world, they're fucking themselves and they're going to figure that out eventually. That won't completely save us, of course, for all kinds of reasons, not least of those being that rich people can just build seawalls and live in high towers and take helicopters/hovercars everywhere and not worry about the impact of climate change. And there's a real threat - perhaps a certainty - that China is going to be the one to take advantage of the new reality while the US continues to have its head up it's ass. I don't think the US should run the world, but China running things is also a worrying prospect.


                            One way or the other, I'm thinking about joining a commune. Just can't figure out how to make that work. It could go so so wrong.




                            The Caption for this New Yorker cartoon by Tom Toro is "Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.”

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                              #39
                              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                              I dunno Amor. We were always outnumbered. It wasn't like we didn't try.
                              As you indicated up-thread, There was a signal difference between the US and UK during the sixties. You had a real war, race riots and cities burning, we had the Beatles and Mary Quant. I'm being intentionally reductive but it always seemed much more was at stake in the US while we were just posturing. It was well dressed posturing with a nifty soundtrack but, in reality it was something most people did only on weekends. So, yes, you did try and that should always be remembered.

                              Comment


                                #40
                                Originally posted by E10 Rifle View Post
                                I do think there's something quite resonant and profound in Danny the drug dealer out of Withnail's end-of-the-sixties lament: "The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over - and we have failed to paint it black."

                                All before my time, mind. Though picking up on what Bruno and Amor have been talking about, the peculiar short-term complacent cockiness of the Nineties explains a lot about what my own generation are like now. And how reactionary they've become (or rather, always were to an extent)
                                Maybe it's just because I graduated from college in '95, but it felt like there was a big shift between the early 90s and late 90s. Early 90s, I heard a lot more talk about stirring shit up, fixing the planet, questioning shit, etc. People I knew were proud of how cheap their clothes and car were. Mudhoney was in ascendance. (not really, but you know...) Pop culture seemed more interesting. Then around '97 it all turned into the dot-com gold rush and pop culture got a bit more boring again and a lot more people seemed interested in money and acted like they were embarrassed by who they were in their more rebellious youth.

                                But that could be bullshit. '97 was when I left university life for the last time and started working in the "real world" so that is coloring my memory. But I do think the whole dot-com thing and the smugness about "winning the cold war" really set in around then. Also, the last few years of the Clinton administration were all about Newt fucking Gingrich and then the "scandal" which took so much wind out of so many progressive sails. Blairism kicked in around then too, right?

                                The 70s seemed to follow a similar pattern, I'm told. I've heard a few people say that once the US got out of Vietnam and then Nixon was out, a lot of people took their eye off the ball and relaxed a bit too much. The dark side of the drugs really started to emerge. The economy was in the shitter (here and in the UK). Hope was dwindling. Regan/Thatcher happened.

                                It's always great to meet somebody in their 60s or 70s (or older) who never gave up. I went to a retreat thing where I met a buy named Bob Sabbath who helped start Sojourners, a progressive Christian collective/magazine that started in Chicago in 1971. He saw where I was from and told me the story of how a woman arrived at their door in Chicago in 1972 or 73 saying "I want to meet the man who wrote this article!" and she held up something he'd written in the magazine. She'd hitchhiked 600 miles from State College (that's why he was telling me this story) to Chicago, unannounced, just to meet him. They've been married for almost 50 years and are still fighting the good fight. I love that shit.

                                Comment


                                  #41
                                  Originally posted by Amor de Cosmos View Post

                                  As you indicated up-thread, There was a signal difference between the US and UK during the sixties. You had a real war, race riots and cities burning, we had the Beatles and Mary Quant. I'm being intentionally reductive but it always seemed much more was at stake in the US while we were just posturing. It was well dressed posturing with a nifty soundtrack but, in reality it was something most people did only on weekends. So, yes, you did try and that should always be remembered.
                                  The 60s were a time of a lot of upheaval in Britain's former colonies, were they not? Did that not stir people up a bit? Taking sides?

                                  Comment


                                    #42
                                    Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post

                                    I'm very curious about why this performance is happening in what appears to be a Brooks Brothers outlet.
                                    It’s a local independent clothing store called the Vintage Suit Hire Company, the video was filmed at his album launch which was live streamed - it was the best available backdrop that fitted his act locally that, most importantly, was free of charge.

                                    Comment


                                      #43
                                      Fair points Reed

                                      And this is too from Amor on our 60s
                                      It was well dressed posturing with a nifty soundtrack but, in reality it was something most people did only on weekends
                                      Wasn't the Seventies - that much demonised and misrepresented decade - the British decade for shaking things up? Punk, Rock Against Racism, Spare Rib, industrial militancy etc.

                                      Comment


                                        #44
                                        It certainly seemed that way to this visitor in the mid-70s (and was in sharp contrast to the relative "normalcy" in the US, even post-Watergate (which was very much an "elite" revolt rather than a popular movement)).

                                        All of which can be seen as further evidence for the time shift theory.

                                        Comment


                                          #45
                                          Originally posted by Bruno
                                          I thought the UK was always 5-6 hours ahead of us.
                                          Five except for the weeks around changing the clocks when it can be four or six.

                                          Comment


                                            #46

                                            To think i started this thread back in September. Back when Boris the cunt didn't have a majority and the government hadn't used a virus to commit geriatricide.Turns out I still did have a few fucks to give.

                                            I'm definitely all out now.

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