Detournement
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Posts posted by Detournement
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On 09/12/2022 at 11:12, coprolite said:
Remember when the centrist social democrat Jeremy Corbyn was widely described as “far left” by every single news outlet in the country?
The UK has drifted incredibly to the right over my lifetime. It’s like boiling a frog though, so incremental. Things like trying to repeal the HRA and leave the HCHR, sending refugees to Africa and outlawing most protests would have been BNP policy when I were a lad.
I don't think the UK state has changed at all in my lifetime which covers Thatcher onwards
The difference now is that the era of easy growth is over so the state has to show it's teeth in terms of cracking down on dissent from the left and whipping up the kind of hatred that gives the ruling class a social base to appeal to.
It's exactly the same in the EU though and the only (non Warsaw pact) countries that probably genuinely have moved to the right are the 4 northern former social democracies.
You can be in parts of the USA and think you are in paradise on Earth then go 100 miles and see horrific poverty and extremely racist policing. We live under a flexible fascism.
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1 hour ago, Todd_is_God said:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-63911298
This seems good in theory, but quite difficult in practice. Are there enough taxis etc available to get everyone home? Anyone trying to get home from Glasgow recently will know the answer to that question.
It also appears only to apply to new businesses so won't be of any help those already employed.
I'm also not entirely sure it is fair to demand employers pay for their employees travel to and from work.
My guess they will need a receipt of some sort to claim it back which as you say probably means a taxi or Uber which are difficult to get.
Given the way the industry works anyone who figures out how to hit their boss with a significant amount of transport expenses won't last long.
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2 hours ago, carpetmonster said:
Stewart McDonald (the Glasgow South one, not the Coatbridge one) resigns as defence spokesman to head for the back benches
That p***k should put his money where his mouth is and head for Kiev or Idlib.
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1 hour ago, welshbairn said:
Getting the support of most of the armed forces would seem to be essential. They got close in Turkey a few years ago.
The footage of ordinary people in Istanbul basically bullying the soldiers involved in the coup should have been one of the most powerful images of the decade but it was buried pretty quickly as it didn't suit the US/EU narrative.
I've seen the Guardia Civil get extremely violent with protestors in Barcelona and the obvious thing about them when you see their faces is that they don't look like the people you see living in the city whether it's the rich or the poor areas. It's the same thing with American police or the Met usually being from outside the cities they control but I don't see how that could work on the scale of a national coup in an advanced country like Germany or the UK.
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9 minutes ago, Brother Blades said:
I like that there’s new blood on the SNP front bench. Black is the left leaning ideology I hope to see more of in a new independent Scotland, she in particular is what will inspire & capture the younger voters in years to come. Exactly the change required IMO.
It will definitely be a change in rhetoric in the House of Commons but it'll be the exact same neoliberal pish in Holyrood where it actually matters.
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It's hard to believe that anyone would think that a small group of people can overthrow a security state within the EU and NATO. Or that any Germans in positions of power don't understand Germany's real position within the US Empire and it's unbroken connection to the Third Reich. Albert Speer jr designing the World Cup final venue should be a reminder to everyone that deNazification was only pursued in the DDR and in the Federal Republic they did the equivalent of a cabinet reshuffle.
@Slim Charles. is probably joking about the Morgenthau plan but Germany barely exists as a political entity now and is in the process of being deindustrialised. There will be lots of Cointelpro style controversies to deflect from genuine concerns over what is going on.
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On 04/12/2022 at 16:56, Frankie S said:
The elevation of Chantal Akerman’s 3 hr 21 min experimental art film ‘23 quai de Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles’ to the top of the list has certainly proved controversial. No-one saw that coming. It’s was 36th in 2012. The pre-poll rumours were all about ‘Vertigo’ being dethroned, with Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ the favourite to top the poll, but hardly anyone was seriously discussing the Akerman film. I’ve not seen it yet, so can’t comment on its merits, but it’s by all accounts a divisive, difficult film, an early example of ‘slow cinema’, which makes little concession towards audience expectations or ‘entertainment’.
I’m quite pleased at some of the results, as personal favourites like Agnes Varda’s ‘Cleo from 5 to 7’, Maya Deren’s surrealist short ‘Meshes of the Afternoon’ (which clearly influenced David Lynch), Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Apocalypse Now’, Lynch’s ‘Mulholland Dr.’ and Spike Lee’s ‘Do The Right Thing’ all placed prominently.
There are a few anomalies - ‘The Godfather’ placed at 12, but ‘The Godfather Part II’, which many consider superior, didn’t place in the top 100. There is clearly some recency bias at work too - there seems no good reason for ‘My Neighbour Totoro’ to finish above Japanese classic ‘Ugetsu’ other than familiarity with the former (and presumably unfamiliarity with the latter) among younger critics. Similarly, for all its merits, ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’ is by no conceivable metric the 30th best film of all time. I rather enjoyed Claire Denis’ ‘Beau Travail’, but it’s elevation from 78th in 2012 to 7th in 2022 seems like an inexplicably steep elevation. And, laudable though it is in some respects, ‘Get Out’ is clearly not one of the best 100 films of all time (I like Jordan Peele, but he’s yet to make a great film IMO). FWIW, although I love ‘Mulholland Dr.’, its canonisation (it finished 8th) amongst the critical community does seem a little curious as I don’t think it’s Lynch’s best film (‘Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me’, critically reviled upon its release, takes that mantle IMO). Another example of critical orthodoxy is the continuing delusion that ‘Some Like It Hot’ is Billy Wilder’s best film.
There are some glaring omissions - ‘L’Avventura’ is far too low at 72=, and Antonioni generally seems to have gone out of favour (‘L’Eclisse’ and ‘La Notte’ are notably absent). I’m not a Godard fan, but he’s probably under-represented, and it’s astonishing that Alain Resnais’ ‘Last Year at Marienbad’ didn’t even make the top 100. It’s fair to say there has been a backlash against white European directors this time round, perhaps understandably. And ‘Raging Bull’ was for many years regarded as Scorsese’s masterpiece, but has now dropped out of the list entirely.On the upside, it’s great to see the promotion of a whole host of excellent women directors, (I’ve been working my way through Agnes Varda’s filmography recently thanks to the great Criterion box set ‘The Complete Films of Agnes Varda’, and what a pleasure that has been), and while I think, for example, Céline Sciammi has made better films than ‘Portrait of a Lady on Fire’, it’s great that filmmakers like her, Varda, Maya Deren, Claire Denis, Chantal Akerman et al are finally getting more recognition.
I think the Akerman film is more a case of it being the most famous feminist film so loads of voters will have ticked the box. 'Cleo From 5 to 7'' is definitely more accessible and enjoyable but apart from 'one thing' her life probably seems quite desirable by contemporary standards. Varda uses mirrors to show how Cleo is complicit in her own oppression in the the first half of the film but that's probably not what women want to see in the era of the seflie.
I think Italy got mugged generally. I'd have all 4 Antonioni/Vitti films, Rocco and his Brothers, Rome Open City, Stromboli and Accatone. If people are looking for feminist films then Stromboli should be mandatory viewing.
Aguirre Wrath Of God is a glaring miss for me. It's a film you watch and are blown away by, it's like nothing else. You definitely can't say the same about the 4 2010s efforts but the list would be a bit pointless if no new film makers ever get on it.
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The Sight and Sound top 100 is pretty uncontroversial. You can see that most of the voters have tried to do a diverse list but it's still pretty good. I don't see the contemporary films sticking around. No one is going to be saying Get Out or Parasite is a top 100 film in a few years time.
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There seems to be rumblings about Assange being freed. The Australian PM and all the big corporate papers have come out for it in the last week.
With a second Biden term looking possible at the moment there are probably people in the Whitehouse who want to get rid of this problem rather than leave it as unflushed turd for their replacements in 2025.
There has also probably never been a worse time for him to die in prison in terms of NATO looking bad internationally.
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There will be #FBPE nostalgia fests before the end of the decade.
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. Bob and Nina.
Her performance is incredible.
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It's not time yet but these festival line ups are quite cool.
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Sturgeon's Southside Henchperson announcing it's a Conspiracy Theory to say the SNP are neoliberal careerists.
Amazing stuff.
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Cormac McCarthy knows what's up.
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If the SNP continue to play by rules set in London independence is totally out of the question. They will though because it's extremely lucrative for them.
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The law is such a scam. That statement of the obvious probably cost millions.
I'd send every single person in that court to work in the fields for a few years.
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1 hour ago, The Moonster said:
Would that be the same British people who protested against these blood soaked invasions?
You can hate Qatars human rights record and British foreign policy at the same time and not be a hypocrite.
Protested so hard that Labour won big majorities in 2001 and 2005....
The way not to be a hypocrite is to treat a sporting event in Doha the way you would treat one in Dundee or Detroit.
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On 18/11/2022 at 22:35, Craig fae the Vale said:
The Passenger by Cormac McCarthy.
Absolutely superb. A welcome return from the master of American fiction.
I'm about halfway through. I love how he is working in elements from his previous novels.
I was a bit worried it would be sub standard but it's been good. The Bob Dylan book is fantastic as well. Old white guys knocking it out the park. Step up next please Mr Pynchon.
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I'm sure he was doing clandestine human rights work between the beach and the rooftop bar.
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47 minutes ago, sugna said:
That's a bold guarantee.
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evenanywhere close to a majority of people I know have even been in a hotel in any of those places, let alone one that has been built under exactly the same conditions as the WC football stadia, or have been on a cruise. So the "huge proportion" is immediately swimming upstream against the data.There must be a self-selecting mechanism at play: stayed in one of those hotels or been on a cruise? Then there's a probability of close to unity that you'll get on your high horse.
Unless of course that guarantee has no basis in reality.
Millions of British people go to Thailand, Egypt, Dubai and on cruises every year.
I guarantee you every single journalist and presenter bitching about Qatar falls into that category.
Alex Scott was that worried about gay rights in the Middle East that she took money to promote Dubai as a holiday destination. They are all full of shit.
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We got a poor draw but the upside is we get two cracks at a massive victory. If we can't take either then we don't deserve the knockouts.
Hopefully we get some good luck with injuries and we can put out a strong 23. For the Boks we definitely want a 6-2 split and players who will make an impact.
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Just now, scottsdad said:
You know that isn't normal, right?
I suspect it probably is for their age/class over the past few years in Scotland.
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What is the point of Labour ?
in The Politics Forum
Posted
Lord Falconer's MI6 son given a winnable seat to contest.
Labour have fully transformed into the US Democrats now. It's Labour representing the Technocratic class Vs The Tories representing the capitalists class.