The Queen is Dead. Long Live the King.

[Kityn]

15 hours ago, Aaron Blain said:

Dang, beat me to it! I don't watch much of her but this one is brilliant.

 

DW has a pretty international community, so I wouldn't expect too many tears shed for British royalty, but they got in most of their really heavy-duty mass-murdering before Elizabeth's time. She was more of a pop culture icon than anything else. Kissinger and Cheney are much more deserving of animosity.

 

https://www.quora.com/How-accurate-is-the-assertion-that-Britain-has-invaded-all-but-22-countries-in-the-world/answer/Uri-Granta-אורי-גרנטה

 

אורי-גרנטהאורי-גרנטה

[Rudolph]

Another reason why it is basically impossible to let the Royal Family "grieve in peace" is that they are not only given state funerals, but also they expect agencies, institutions and even businesses to have their operations affected whenever one of them kicks the bucket. It is ridiculous.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Rudolph

[Aaron Blain]

@KitynThat's a much better map, thank you. Still the 2nd most destructive empire in history. My point is that people outside the eurocentric "International Community" are less likely to have a fond view of the British crown. Thanks for injecting some nuance!

 

But again, I wouldn't even put Victoria near the top of my list of blame for the tens of millions who were killed or starved to death on her watch. That would be perhaps Gladstone &co, or Bentham and Malthus. The Rumsfelds and Blairs and Dugins of their day.

Edited September 10, 2022 by Aaron Blain

[Solmyr]

6 hours ago, Kityn said:

 

https://www.quora.com/How-accurate-is-the-assertion-that-Britain-has-invaded-all-but-22-countries-in-the-world/answer/Uri-Granta-אורי-גרנטה

 

אורי-גרנטהאורי-גרנטה

According to this map Britain invaded itself at some point, lol. I know they had a couple of civil wars on their history, but it would've been better if UK was colored blue or purple to make it stand out as the point of the map is to depict their worldwide military interventions.

 

I doubt the accuracy of this map, can't speak for other nations but in South America, Brazil and Venezuela are accurate, while Argentina and Uruguay should be light orange, as the British invasion took place in 1807 at the time both countries didn't exist and were part of the Spanish Empire, so invasion of a historical parent state would apply here.

18 hours ago, wallabra said:

It's funny, Brazil has always had ties to the UK ever since its independence. In a way, it became effectively an economical colony of the UK, and later in history the US, though the UK does have some economical influence here to this day, such as in the illegal gold prospecting of the Amazon.

I believe those diplomatic ties to the UK can be traced back to the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, which is the oldest continous alliance in the world, (it dates back to the middle ages). Since Brazil used to be part of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarve, and also housed the portuguese royal family during the Napoleonic Wars it's natural that the UK kept close ties with Brazil after it's independence from Portugal. 

 

About the neo-colonial aspect of the Anglo-Brazillian relationship, it applies to all of South America, what they couldn't achieve by force or shady diplomacy, they did so by building and owning infraestructure such as railways, telegraph posts, factories, electric and telephone companies, and naval shipyards. I don't know about Brazil, but before 1947 half of the region drove on the left side of the road.

 

Illegal or shady extractionism such as illegal gold prospecting in Brazil, that probably has more to do with local politicians being corrupt slimy sellouts. Politicians no matter where they are from, seek self benefit first, and if they can't throw their own people under the bus to achieve said self-benefit, they will do so to people from other countries.

Edited September 11, 2022 by Solmyr

[DJVCardMaster]

20 hours ago, Herr Dethnout said:

iirc They do that every time when playing The Trooper. It was a bad idea but people should know that they're an British Band and do that frequently lol

Then the fans out there are being thermo-heads as always. They KNOW Iron Maiden is from the UK and the band's mascot wears a Union Jack flag...

[Drywtler]

3 hours ago, DJVCardMaster said:

thermo-heads

That's a way to translate it LMAO

[wallabra]

15 hours ago, Aaron Blain said:

A symbol, yes, but materially speaking not among the worst bad actors. I don't disagree with you though.

 

Yes, I used to think the same, but symbols do have material consequences, like social influence. Even without the power to coerce, she did have a lot of implicit power, as I call it, just like any celebrity. A social movement of British nationalists and conservatives surely benefited off of having her being the human face of the British Nation, and of many such nations overseas, and that most certainly had a practical, possibly material, impact.

 

In the 21st century, one interesting development in sociological studies is how such social and memetic factors affect material ones. This is important to understand when studying, for instance, the alt-right, which is a sort of umbrella word but also broadly defined movement, which exists largely online, consisting of lone-wolf actors who infiltrate and self-organize in social spaces using dogwhistles, convince people with memes and vague statements on society, and then gradually radicalizes them on a succession of layers of fringe and far-right beliefs. These groups glorify political violence, make a strawman of the "woke" to blame society's general woes on, and engage in the filthiest forms of direct action you can think of, where instead of protesting against institutions, they go out of their way to harass, doxx, and generally attack persons, their relatives, and public images, having driven many to suicide.

 

I know it's a bit of a long-winded example, but point is, these are significant social and material consequences to a phenomenon which cannot be fully described within a historical materialist framework, and while it does not in the slightest invalidate materialism as a way to analyze the broad strokes of history, it does prove that there is more to the workings and developments of society than a plain and simple struggle between those who have and those who don't, although I would still argue that such struggle is the primary factor that drives political and social change. Really, what it means is that, while historical events can usually be defined within the context of the material interests of the belligerents and their constituent classes, there are exceptions to that rule of thumb (such as the ascension of the original Nazi Party of German Workers, which was largely thanks to their persuasive nationalist ideology, rather than a material struggle with the young capitalist class of the Weimar republic).

 

 

15 hours ago, Aaron Blain said:

I'm currently working my way through the core of the anarchist canon. I didn't find Proudhon's What is Property? or Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy very compelling or persuasive, but I'm trying to steel-man my picture of anarchism as best I can. Moving on to Kropotkin and Malatesta next, but that's a subject for a different thread.

 

Yeah, I find it a waste to time to think or debate about anarchist utopias usually. It's why I like to call myself a libertarian socialist with anarcho-communist tendencies, rather than plain and simply an anarchist. Anarchist principles are beautiful and could lead to a better world, but there are way too many logic gaps in any sufficiently thorough conception of an anarchist utopia because it's just so far into the future. Doesn't mean one can't exist, but it is impossible with what we know about the world today to make such a prediction. We have to do things one step at a time.

 

My main departure from Marxism is that we shouldn't use the dictatorship of the proletariat to do so, and that we don't necessarily need so much a direct revolution, as perhaps an "underground" one, a network or society or group of people that exist within the context of a state but operate in their own ways, hoping to eventually amass enough popular support and adhesion culminating in some sort of largely peaceful overthrow of the state. I do think reformism is unable to provoke significant changes on society, but it still has its place in making the people's living conditions better within the framework of a capitalist democracy, which even Marx himself recognized late in his life, funnily enough.

 

15 hours ago, Rudolph said:

Multiple? I know about Prince Andrew, but who are the others?

 

Charles is also an adamant defender of Epstein, too, last I remember.

 

13 hours ago, Solmyr said:

I believe those diplomatic ties to the UK can be traced back to the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, which is the oldest continous alliance in the world, (it dates back to the middle ages). Since Brazil used to be part of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and Algarve, and also housed the portuguese royal family during the Napoleonic Wars it's natural that the UK kept close ties with Brazil after it's independence from Portugal. 

 

About the neo-colonial aspect of the Anglo-Brazillian relationship, it applies to all of South America, what they couldn't achieve by force or shady diplomacy, they did so by building and owning infraestructure such as railways, telegraph posts, factories, electric and telephone companies, and naval shipyards. I don't know about Brazil, but before 1947 half of the region drove on the left side of the road.

 

That would be very correct, the United Kingdom built a lot of infrastructure here. They even had a regular ferry way to Rio de Janeiro at some point.

 

13 hours ago, Solmyr said:

Illegal or shady extractionism such as illegal gold prospecting in Brazil, that probably has more to do with local politicians being corrupt slimy sellouts. Politicians no matter where they are from, seek self benefit first, and if they can't throw their own people under the bus to achieve said self-benefit, they will do so to people from other countries.

 

Indeed, that as well, although, at least in some instances, there are signs of British involvement.

Edited September 11, 2022 by wallabra