Good documentary on the era here.
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Technology also advanced which meant you had to be less and less of a collective to produce music.
Tim Vickery used to remark about bands in England that every neighbourhood had its own band/s, that it almost had the air of a sort of local youth defence batallion culture about it.
This culture endured to the 90s at least and Oasis perpetuated that culture for a while but at the same time sort of ossified it, and after that music and the idea of being in a band became more and more a middle class pursuit.
Worth a read:
Gofundmes piss me off completely and the inner cunt in me would hazard a guess that a sizeable number of them are a quick money spinner.
Fairly sure I read it a long time ago.
The so called western military-industrial complex is utterly essential to preserving basic freedom in Europe.
Yes, trillions couldnât possibly be spent more effectively
They could of course be spent more effectively but sadly Putin and his Chinese buddies exist as well as a whole host of other vile regimes who want basic freedoms in the west to collapse, and no amount of delusion will make that go away.
And there are plenty of loons in the west itself who want the west to collapse, such as yourself.
The most charitable view of anybody who doesnât recognise that the western military industrial complex is an entirely necessary thing is that they have a Mary Poppins view of the world.
In many cases these âviewsâ are an obvious front for a desire that a Russia/China led military complex dominates the world.
I think youâre stuck somewhere between these two positions.
Why have they done to put themselves at the same level as Putin?
The Uighurs?
I donât know know whether theyâre on the same level as Putin, all that matters is theyâre allied to him.
Theyâre committing what seems like a thinly veiled genocide against the Uyghurs and itâs pretty clear they want to invade Taiwan. Theyâre aiding Russia in its war on Ukraine. Theyâre a dictatorship being led by an extremely dangerous nationalist and the regime now seems to be making a bollix of running the country.
The fact is, there are two geo-political camps. Thereâs the one led by America which contains Europe, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea etc., and then thereâs the one led by China and Russia.
If youâre an India with 1.4 billion people you can attempt to try and play these camps off against each other.
For Ireland and other individual European, it should a bloody easy choice as to which camp youâre allied with.
No, canât pay that. I mean, small bit of ethnic cleansing, ill grant you that. But full scale bombing the chinese lads have yet to adoptâŚ
thereâs far more than just two as much as media/nato would like have it alligned in such simplistic terms.
just interesting youre putting a whole nation of people in the same sentence as once despot. some could claim that as subtle racism. Not me now ming you, ive no gra for such debate. But someâŚ
Edit: ming a misspelling but will leave for posterity!
South America as a whole told America to fuck off recently when they tried to strong arm the continent into providing arms to Ukraine⌠The south American countries as a bloc said the world should be pursuing peace not more armament and prolonging war and death.
Iâm not even sure it made the headlines in many western countries. It doesnât suit the narrative of continuing war at all costs.
War is money after allâŚ
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There are two main camps, same as in the Cold War.
The key difference now is that the Russia/China camp have active fifth columnists within the west, the key one being the Republican party in the US and especially the Trump cabal, plus your Brexiteers like Farage and the far right in Europe. Thereâs a small but highly vocal online tankie movement which publicly identifies as âleftâ but in reality are largely in alliance with with the far right and certainly in alliance with China and Russia.
China is led by a despotic regime. Geopolitics is played according to who leads countries and their aims. Racism doesnât even come into it. Thatâs why the leadership of the US is such a big deal. The rest of the world can breathe a bit easier if the US is led by somebody like Biden who is committed to the traditional post World War II transatlantic alliance. If the US is led by Trump, who wants to blow that alliance apart, itâs a serious, pretty much existential problem for Europe and the free world.
This is why Europe needs to seriously beef up its own defence capabilities. The consequences of what its happening with Putin invading Ukraine are World War II like.
Thereâs an axis of autocracy in the world. It runs through Trump and the Republican party, Russia, China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Assad, Venezuela, the current Indian regime of the BJP, the Israeli far right, North Korea, the Brexiteers, the European far right and the tankies. It also runs through Elon Musk. Some of those are not allied to each other, ie. Iran and Saudi Arabia, the US right wing and China, and yet in a way they are, because they all benefit from the fall of liberal democracy worldwide.
Thereâs this bizarre thing in the US right-wing bubble where they claim to hate China and yet are openly cheerleaders for Putin, who is Chinaâs ally. Theyâre living a public delusion.
I see the online tankiesphere is furious with Lula because they see him as being pro-Ukraine.
Lolz.
China is the only rival to the US as the preeminent global superpower. Russia wanted to be the third, and wanted each to be allowed do whatever they wanted in their own spheres of influence. China is pretty regressive to put it mildly. No they havenât invaded anywhere like Russia has done with Ukraine yet, but thereâs little doubt the want to extend their influence and are open to doing so in ways we the west would consider negative, again to put it mildly.
UN general assembly resolution calling for Russia to leave Ukraine 147 - 7 with 32 abstentions. It can break simplistically enough sometimes.
Also an inconvenient truth that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable is NATO is essentially an anti-imperialist entity, and itâs certainly an anti-imperialist idea, itâs as anti-imperialist an idea as you can get.
We have seen the ultimate proof of that now, as countries who joined NATO do not get invaded by Russia, while countries who werenât accepted into NATO do get invaded by Russia.
You just have to spend a certain percentage of your GDP on purchasing arms every year⌠I wonder where they buy all their shit from? But yeah, more guns in the world is always good. Thatâs why you and @glasagusban are such pro gun nuts.
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