In that autobiography you may possibly have noticed former British PM Tony Blair is currently touting, the one called ‘A Journey’ (a title that masterfully captures the sublimely faux modesty of its subject), Blair compares himself to Princess Di.
‘“We were both, in our own way, manipulators” — good at grasping the feelings of others and instinctively playing on them.’
The papers of course have seized on the People’s Premier’s candidness, making headlines out of it. That and his observation (conveyed in a kind of morse prose) that Gordon Brown had: “Political calculation, yes. Political feelings, no. Analytical intelligence, absolutely. Emotional intelligence, zero.” And also his claim that he knew Gord’s premiership would likely be ‘a disaster.’
I agree with Tony. Or rather, Tony agrees with moi. Back in 2006, when Brown’s bizarre (and now conveniently forgotten) popularity with the media was rampant, just before his coronation as Labour Leader, I predicted, with Cassandrine accuracy, that Brown would be a disastrous leader of the Labour Party and that he had in fact already lost the next General Election. I also compared Brown and Blair to Charles and Di, calling Brown an ‘operator’ and Blair a ‘great manipulator’.
Of course, it didn’t really take much insight to see all that coming, even if most of the media couldn’t at the time. But in the piece I talked about how Blair’s ‘lying’ was what made him a much more successful, much more popular politician than Brown – who was very, very bad at it. Which is not to say that Brown was a much more honest man – just that he wouldn’t and couldn’t perform for us.
‘Admitting he lied is not a mistake Blair is likely to ever make. Blair’s special talent, the thing that puts him ahead of most other politicians, certainly in British political history, is that he can convince himself his lies are literally the god’s honest truth, at least for as long as he’s telling us them. And – truth be told – in his mind, he never actually ‘lies’ to us at all. He’s an actor – an actor of the Stanlislavsky school: the emotion he shows us is ‘true’, it’s just usually attached to something that is not. This is why he’s such a great performer and politician – we appreciate and are flattered by the energy and the psychosis he puts into his performances. He is a great manipulator…’.
‘Brown on the other hand is a great operator. And operators, unlike manipulators, are painful to watch. They resent having to manipulate us and we resent having to watch them resenting having to manipulate us. Tony is Princess Di to Brown’s Prince Charles. Brown, who tells us he is ‘quite private’ and who prefers ‘substance over celebrity’ as if these were reasons why we should be interested in him, clearly wants power but he doesn’t really want to become the thing that power is in this mediated day and age: an actor. He won’t be forgiven for that by the electorate/audience.’
Brown’s desperate agreement to appear in those Election X Factor shows – in which David Cameron and Nick Clegg, both thespian heirs to Blair, shone with their ‘look, guys’ sincere insincerity – only threw his boring manse inflexibility into even more painful relief. The electorate treated him with Cowellian disdain (the most damning thing of all was that those listening on the radio thought Brown had won the debates).
And even in the political afterlife the emotional gulf between Brown and Blair persists. Blair of course is passionately hated, where Brown is merely despised. Or worse, pitied.
‘Doesn’t he look OLD?’ we spit, when Blair pops up in the papers or on telly, usually to tell us with those raised eyebrows how he doesn’t regret anything and didn’t fib about anything either, honestly guys. ‘Hasn’t he aged BADLY?’ we gloat, pretending to be beyond his charms now. But actually sounding just like a bitter ex trying to convince themselves that their former amore fell apart after the affair ended after he turned out to be sleeping with the au pair.
Truth is, Blair still has that Diana star quality – partly because he is still a great manipulator, but mostly because it’s so difficult to work out which side of the reason/unreason line he’s on these days. You can’t but watch with rapt attention, trying to divine the content of his (Catholic) soul.
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I suspect that the reason why the world is such a mess is that their is so much of a disparity between what they imagine for themselves and what, in reality has to happen by way of reconciliation with our fellows and with hard facts. People imagine and dream that if everyone pursues their own wants with ambition, everything will become out well for everyone. Follow your dreams, they say of course we know that this ends up in callous disreguard for others.
Modern American Capitalism has perforce been generated by a combination of beliefs in the mega-mythical ‘trickle down ’ theory’ with special Christian bonuses for “God’s chosen.’ The whole thing is a lot of wishful thinking and rationalization. Clearly these Christians are the same people asking for the death penalty for gay persons and Quran burning in America. This is not fomented by any different spirit than that which fortified the Inquisition in Europe and Witch trials throughout eiurope and America.
I don’t take any offense at a likening of myself or thought to Dawkins; since I don’t argue rationally for for against what is imaginary. People’s
One is taken pre menopause and the other, post.
I’m not absolutely certain that it isn’t.
If this picture was at the top of this page, everything would be so much better…
http://girlsinsuits.tumblr.com/post/1002896602/homosaywhat-cate-blanchett-makes-everyone-feel
The fact that Jesus never existed shouldn’t take anything away from the Gnostic teachings that have affected you so much. We take the Bible to be fact in these modern times, because parables are less common. But back then the parable was used in literature constantly.
Personally I don’t see any need in having thought based comfort zones. Your ego, or my ego or the mythical Jesus ego mean very little to me.
I’m sorry Mark W, I didn’t mean to aim my annoyance with Dawkins at you. I like saying ‘suck my dick’ as much as the next girl, but it is a bit aggressive isn’t it!
This is Dialectic Of Enlightenment. It is, unlike The God Delusion, one of the best books I have ever read.
It was written during the second world war by German Marxist philosophers in exile from the Nazis. It crackles with the horror and brutality of the situation in Europe at that time. Basically, it argues that there is no dichotomy between ‘myth’ and ‘reality’ because the enlightened, rational, empirical logic of modern capitalism is full of mythologies itself. And it is these mythologies which have enabled the Nazi project to storm through Europe.
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=1103
Poetry And What Is Real
http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/0472098721-fm.pdf
Dawkins can suck my imaginary dick.
Whether or not you believe it, there is in fact a difference in the English language between that which can be proven and show to be true (real) and that which is hypothetical or imagined and which we give the same verity or validity as that which can be proven.
More Specifically, in the theology of the last two centuries– due to the acceptance of scientific proof, the existential branch of protestantism admitted of the need to accept withpout any proof of reality, the need for belief and grace (which is “blind faith”). The Catholic Church never gave up on their unusual meanderings into logical proof. But the other Theologians have been careful to speak of the importance of faith, because it id very different than claiming that there is proof. My life would be no better if i thought I was fooling myself.
can think of many
I can think of many reasons to dispair of the future of the world in the sort term, but choose to have faith that something will preserve things.
… and if anyone owns the rights to that sentiment it is Horkheimer and Adorno. I just can’t find the quote.
Oh my, I feel I am re-enacting The God Delusion right here!! It was bad enough the first time round.
I do not believe in a dichotomy between ‘belief’ and ‘reality’. All people’s realities are shaped by their beliefs. And their beliefs are shaped by and include their realities. Jesus has played a part in my life, and so has Mike from My Own Private Idaho, and so has Sylvia Plath, and Emily Dickinson and Antoine Doinel, and James Baldwin and little Ludovic from Ma Vie En Rose. I don’t care if these people are real or fictional. They are part of me. Without our imaginations how are we going to imagine and create a better world?
Moreover, at the end of a month of pretend meals, would you be fatter, or less healthy?
I think QRG that you are missing a critical point in the discussion, and that is the issue of belief versus reality. I recently watched the most recent documentary of Che’s life. Nothing in Never never land could possibly speak louder to me than the tribute that real live human beings are capable great, unfailing goodness. In this world of so many adverse examples– that surely gives me faith.
Ask yourself, at the end of the day, whether you would be as filled up by many pretend banquets, tea parties or whatever, as you would be by a real bowl of nourishing soup!
I don’t care Marcelo. I have a bit of my heart that has been touched by ‘Jesus’ and no amount of evidence that he did not exist will change my heart’s mind. That’s the problem with empiricism. It doesn’t speak to every single part of us. If it did we would all be as boring as Richard Dawkins.
While it’s fair game to show fault with logical proofs of God’s existence, i.e. as the first cause’ such as Kant did with Aquinas’ argument, a person becomes the center of derision when they throw darts at someone’s admittedly irrational “beliefs”. When anyone claims to have an irrational need for a creator, for an afterlife, etc. I’m lost. While I to am a militant secularist as far as government goes, people can do what they want in their bedrooms.
The truth is that where beliefs go, there is only one safe considerate position in our world for those who do not believe and that is Agnosticism. The matter asks no more.
I think Mr Dawkins should be strapped to a lectern in Westminster Cathedral and made to recite The Dialectic Of Enlightenment in full, until he feels some kind of diminishing of his atheistic, rational zeal.
An important difference between Jesus and Che, is that Che actually existed. The bible is a gnostic parable — and there is no historical evidence outside of the Bible that he or moses existed.
http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/2008/09/12/gday-world-343-robert-m-price-did-jesus-exist/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6THwSYY_aU
http://marcelo717.wordpress.com/2010/05/23/the-bible-is-bullshit/
http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/jesus_myth_history.htm
http://www.marxist.com/audio-foundations-of-christianity-jp.htm
For starters…
The God Delusion is one of the worst books I have ever tried to read.
Reading The God Delusion was like being buttonholed by somebody with halitosis and no respect for your personal space.
I don’t think of my self as being atheist or anything in that regard because there are questions that don’t bear asking, or that I had no reason to ask. Needless to say, if any of us “believed in that which is magical and mystical-whatever it is– from unicorns to talking mice, our lives would be different. Certainly since the structure of our lives has been formulated as a foil to much Christian belief as Christian belief I’m sure was the antithesis or in opposition to what came before it. It’s not as if, for instance the Garden of Eden Myth was formulated out of someones pure fantasy(I’m speculating here)I’m sure they had some basis in making sense of the world around them.Indeed, re; feminism, you may have read Camile Paglia’s description of civilizations turning from worship of the golden calf to the ram; symbolically from the matriarchal society(of the Celts) to a paternalistic one(e.g.of the Jews) where women were not in charge, it became a man’s world(presumably) with the Judeo-christian turn.
It’s not new that there is no ultimate foundation for our way of seeing things sometimes it goes from a highly mythical one to one not founded on such clear beliefs. Of course we always believe things, I believe that the sun will go down tonight and rise tomorrow (now isn’t that a silly description-but it serves my purposes even though it comes from a different paradigm re;the sun and earth). And it may not happen.
I fear that the world will end because of global warming ;but low and behold– I just found out that all the honey bees in the earth are dying rapidly so nothing will pollinate. They don’t know why. We may die of starvation in a few years. So what of my beliefs.
I think that Tony may have wanted to be a nun if he had not been called to diddle Geo. Bush. and be a princess of sorts as well as a commoner could do. BTW it was mark now that i think who owns the Christ/Tony parallel-something about crucifying him(crucifying and throwing eggs and shoes-which Christ would have used.!)
Oh, I doubt I was the first to notice during the run-up to the Iraq War that Tone was rather enjoying hanging on the cross of public opinion. Being a ‘public service kind of guy’ he decided the gospel cast-list could be trimmed back and selflessly combined the roles of Judas and Jesus, kissing himself, taking the thirty pieces of silver.
I am a bit of a militant secularist, but I can’t bear Granny Dawkins’ atheist evangelism. ‘The God Delusion’ was a shockingly shoddy little book. He’s also just plain wrong when he insists that agnosticism is ‘fence-sitting’. It’s just refusing to join his club or the Pope’s.
I learned more from a Christian than from anyone else I know. I could just say he is a human who happened to be a Christian but a lot of what I learned from him was how to question my own dogma, from my liberal, atheist, PC, feminist upbringing. This was because of his different way of looking at the world. Without a Christian influence in my life I would be a very different creature indeed I think. Weird to say, as I remain a staunch atheist. But as my other ‘Jesus’ type figure said, ‘Nothing Is Fundamental’.
anyway, Tony is only a Christian for his own Machievellian requirements I am sure.
Mark’s imagination is a many splendored thing; I’m not sure about Tony/Christ, or if Mark finds the christian mythology a source of useful sexual or even human metaphors. don’t just just him the rights to everything out of hand.
I nearly always feel that way; but mainly because of all the whacky Christians around where I live, screaming about how we’re all headed for the bar-b-gue pit below if we don’t believe, which doesn’t serve any Christian message of love too well. I am fortunate enough to have pretty entirely all (unpracticing ) jewish friends. Their may be a few borderline who Christians I know.
There are many ways for me to feel isolated from this Midwestern, anti-intelectual group of persons.
I think Mark S came up with the whole Christ/Tony thing didn’t he? Either way, I am sure he owns the rights…
I feel a little odd having this conversation under the watchful, slightly crazed eye of St Tony of Blair, Mark W!
I myself live in the land of Dawkins lovers, and I find fundamental atheism just as poisonous as fundamental Christianity. I read the Gospels in a furtive manner, feeling like I was somehow betraying my own ‘Church’ , and I probably enjoyed them more for the taboo element that entailed. I also like a bit of asceticism myself, in a purely kinky way of course.
As for Lenin, What Is To Be Done? is not exactly without its ideological problems. And it is not as poetic as Matthew, my favourite Gospel.
I often feel like him that I am ‘the voice of one, crying in the wilderness’.… don’t you?
QRG: BTW, that really is quite clever! Being a Catholic though, I think that Tony would have much rather have been the Virgin Mary if things had come out right.
Well, the parallel can hardly be dismissed, I think that Bush got claims to that personally, early on perhaps Tony thought of himself as Mary Magdalen, greasing Bush’s feet. I’m not sure if he can grow a beard like Christ. Certainly, between them, they did murder countless totally innocent people. The logistics though are a you suggest– my guess is that without Britain’s collusion, I don’t think that the whole mess would have gone as far.
I think that as far as the “gospels” go , there are different calls. Some from Paul would have you running to the first chastity belt maker you could find, chewing on wood chips, and chastizing yourself for wanting more.
While I’ve spent as little time as possible with my nose in the Bible(the most overrated book in history), I have no doubt that much of the western capitalist project had it’s foundations there, and that Lenin had it right in suspecting it.
The good things in Christianity are more of a byproduct of atavistic empathy (humanism) than vice verse. Living in a land of Bible beaters, I know very well that the farther people distance themselves from this madness the better people they tend to be ethically.
‘Christ didn’t do a whole lot except give birth to a lot of morons who killed each other because of affliiation with illusory beliefs.’
when you say Christ, you do mean Tony don’t you, Mark W?
Well I found The Gospels a sort of revolutionary call to arms, myself. And quite homo-erotic too. But maybe that says more about me than it does about Jesus.
Jesus really didn’t do much but give birth to a legion of power hungry psychopaths; it’s sort of hard to know, in reality what people were being martyred for : a extension of a mythology by which gentiles could accept some version of Judaism ; possibly a way of life which would be compassionate but; more so the acceptance of a lot of mythical hocus pocus not to unlike the Roman dietys.
ollowers by and large are no reflection of even the general themes of what he presumably preached. But he was a preacher, not a doer. Che on the other hand lived and died in the cause pf his ideals. As Marcello said– you just mention his name to poor hispanics who have come up from the South , and their eyes lighten up. Che killed the bastard ruling class who oppressed, used and terrorized the ordinary citizens who Batista and other American implant dictators supported. He say t5he horrors of imperialism throughout South America and sacrificed his life righting the physical suffering induced by imperialism.
Christ didn’t do a whole lot except give birth to a lot of morons who killed each other because of affliiation with illusory beliefs.
But Jesus was a deviant. There’s so many ways of interpreting the concept, and the individuals who embody deviancy… I don’t know how helpful the word is to describe political/cultural subversion.
Roland, you were so right, weren’t you? The ‘Author’ is dead and buried. (cause of death: overblown sense of His own importance). The readers are the writers now, and the poor writers have to run to keep up with them.
Genet may have invented the internet, but Mr Barthes must have designed the blogosphere…
It’s true that after so much protesting, one does get a little tired. But, that’s the western ‘so called left’ for you. They think they can change things by protesting only. And since that always fails — it tires them all out, and back to their latest hit sitcom they go.
The Latin American left though rarely strictly protest. They gather, they organize, they make things happen — they work hard towards achieving a goal. They form guerrilla armies if pushed too far and they attempt to take those bastards down, one way or another.
Nowadays though — Latin Americans are so aware of what’s happening that the right oligarchies are all moving to Miami and guerilla armies have been replaced by real grassroots work and smart political and economic strategies. Not the kind that just involves people “showing up”. Of, course — like all changes, it can still be messy. We are dealing with people after all.
Che Guevarra is largely to blame for that. Because he genuinely cared. He and people like Simon Bolivar, Eduardo Galeano and others instilled a deep sense of love and compassion. As corny as that may sound to the western pallette. Just go to South America and mention Che’s name — you won’t get the kind of unfounded irrational cynicism that you get here.
And here, you always get that usual line “but Che was violent, he killed X amount of people…” Duh!, of course — it’s a centuries old friggin war he was fighting!
What do they think — that the empire will give up with hugs and kisses?
I shouldn’t leave “antisocial causes” just hanging their without any specifiers; it sounds way to vague and general; I should say that I lean to causes in the world that will undermine the forces which destroy our world and the lives of so many people in it . That which is ‘deviant’ is just most alternatives to the religious insanity in America. Really those become tamer all the time. Today a walk in the woods was just fine.
QRG: you know that those are the tears of genuine pain, those of a delicate flower plucked before it’s time. You are just feeling guilty for being hard hearted.
The hard fact about the war and making war generally for the U.S. is that they can ill afford economically to stop. I can’t imagine that Obama believes that persistently fighting a hopeless and meaningless battle and stationing troops all over the world is in itself a good idea. Even in Iraq they will just replace fighting soldiers with a less harmful group. Fact is America has this huge fighting machine and many industries supplying them with food, implements, and armaments. They may as well be out in the woods having maneuvers for all practical purposes. The unemployment problem would be a bigger mess than it is. Face it,the U.S has relentlessly started one aggressive conflict after another since the Spanish American War, before WW2.
That of course does not forgive in any way the criminal leaders in Britain or the U.S. for lying to everyone and initiating the bloody mess in Iraq. I don’t think that anyone, especially as mentally deficient as Bush could persistently lie to everyone and simultaneously smile for fear of starting to laugh and say“got cha” . Someone posted a picture on the web of Bush with that sincere, meaningful look on his mug saying “Boy, did I Fuck You”. That seemed apt.
Tony is just the perennial silly girl who we all dream would rather be shipping down the yellow brick road, than confronting the cruel world of nasty men like Bush/Cheney (his fat friend) and the whole scheming bunch of psychopaths. His fault was not being the originator of lies as much as a great toady, whose sin was that of being coerced and for that being a totally inept leader, not even capable of taking responsability for more than
weakness. Surely no one would deny that Thatcher was more of a man than he. I’m sure that Tony lived in fear of those meeting with Bush,and the inevitable entertainment in which he had to grab his ankles and take it like a trollop . Shoes and eggs are a relief in comparison.
QRG; I think that the process by which the representatives and hit men of the system gain recognition is entirely different than that by which the enemies of political systems gain their recognition. We have to remember that as a rule history is always written by the rhetoricians of conquerors and demagogues and never by the downtroden or the people who live by their wits and self made ideals in opposition to the empowered.
Especially in the class of self made people and people who come by their personages as a foil to tyranny, their are a whole range of different personages: sometimes our knowledge about them is mythical and sometimes it
comes from accurate acounts. Manly we do know that it would be pure nonsense to assume that there was any necessary and sufficient connection between sociopathology and moral integrity; or either of those and poetry. Likewise it is erroneous to claim that there was any similarity between any two people belonging to any of those groups or subsets if such. In simple terms, the kind of generalization you suggest ids just not possible.
It is far easier to bunch groups of followers. Individuals are for that very reason, hard to generalize about.
I gained a certain amount of appreciation for Che, speaking to poor Mexican people who while uneducated knew that there were hereos who out of pure empathy and moral outrage fought for the poor against oppression he was rejected even by Castro for his beliefs and eventually murdered by the CIA in So. American forests.
He kept journals and their were many films of his struggles. He was an authentic, courageous good man. So was he handsome. In his own way , so was Genet and even Foucault, who was blown up transporting bombs in the fight against Franco. I was in love with Marat, of the French revolution; who many may say was a psychopath; but I think not; likewise, from images he was handsome. I don’t know if sexuality is generally connected with female descent, mainly because of the connection with submission. There is an interesting contrast in those paradigms. Female opposition seems almost to needs to be asexual. In a world dominated by men or by women I think. But maybe I ‘m wrong. De Sade might give some hints there; as should Ms. P. I think that an examination of “180 days of Sodom” might prove interestingl.
Nonetheless, regardless of popular interests, my interests sway in the direction of the “deviant ” and given the nature of our world, toward antisocial causes. (any correlation may be, or not be accidental).
ok Damien, I mean Tony, you can stop staring me out with those vacant bloodshot blue eyes now. I am sufficiently terrified.… http://www.cbc.ca/arts/images/pics/omen1.jpg
Well, it did say by anti war protesters and breakaway republicans. I’d say the Republicans threw the eggs and the anti-war protesters threw the shoes.
Who knows, he might have found a nice pair for himself.
According to The Beast the Anti-War Movement is ‘exhausted’, so maybe they didn’t have the energy to throw the shoes either:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/anti-war-groups-lose-momentum/activism/?cid=cs:headline1
Mark W– I see the sexual allure of criminals and ‘anti-social’ personages too. But up close and personal, I have found one or two of them to be psychopathic, deluded and destructive. Men’s ability to mythologise themselves and other men is something I used to envy but I don’t any more. For every Che, Johnny Cash, Bill Hicks and Walt Whitman, there are thousands of wannabes who have all the violence and the alienation, and none of the poetry or revolution. The process by which we make
(anti-) heroes out of even the genuine revolutionaries, is not so far removed from the process by which we make stars out of the likes of Blair. I don’t think we can have our ‘Great (Misunderstood) Men of History’ cake and eat it.
P.s. Now I feel sick. To think Tony got off on that display. He gives me actual abjection.
Blair looks so much like having ‘star quality’, especially when he is being pelted with eggs and shoes http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/09/04–0
…by breakaway Republicans angry at the peace deal in Northern Ireland.
I saw a clip of him rushing into the bookshop having run the gauntlet, egg free, with that drag queen smile at full-wattage with an almost post-coital thrill to his complexion — and doing that thing he does of sticking out his arms with the elbows crooked to announce his importance and Big Man on Campus status. I wonder if he picked that up from Bush? Bush never seemed to pick up Tony’s DQ smile.
I think that your version had more referential pungency. Medusa’s eye’s were far more to be feared than Caligula’s I believe . Although I wouldn’t want his attention in any way to speak of. At least you know not only who they are but who Mitterand is: The only reference I’ve heard any Americans make about him was a squack that arose on the net about him eating a boiled bird with a napkin on his head. That’s the kind of thing that gets people’s blood boiling. They hate the French anyway because they’re literate and theirs is just another language (besides English ) that no one can speak.
You have done what you’ve done, Mark, and any lack of recognition and bullying you’ve gotten as a result have been for an honorable cause. I believe that it is just a function of personality, intelligence and perseverance in believing that something good can be gotten out of the world and passed on. I’m not sure that everyone has a choice.
The ability to see things in new ways and write them down are just a job you’ve had , maybe all the more special for not being appreciated. Consider so many of your predecessors who sat in jail cells. Original thinkers are not always well liked. You’ve been doomed to be a success, perhaps you will disappoint. We all do, at one time or other.
Fanboys and fangirls expect (and demand) to be disappointed. Dems the breaks.
So long as you don’t publish any actual poems, I think it’ll be ok.
At one time a power metaphor which had considerable currancy amongst the denizens off the deep end of the underbelly of sexual sadomasochism was that “It takes a good bottom to make a good top”. I.e. all emotionally developed people realize their submissive as well as their oppressive potential. To play one role well is to know the other. I find this true in human power relations. People who are relentlessly in need of power often fell inadaguate but don’t realise it. I think that people like Thatcher are simply not strong enough to appear weak. She was a friend of our R. Regan who played a major role in destroying Democracy in the United States and establishing a wide class system. I remember her best for having helped the butcher Pinoche’ escape justice in the World Court by stealth and of course decimating the power of working people in England.
OMG, mouth of Marilyn Monroe; he must have been joking; she looks like a sewer rat in the mouth, the eyes too. i don’t know why they didn’t caracaterize her as a rodent with a red wig on; who could see tears in those squinty little eyes? Imagine kissing that mouth. Phewy! She was probably just pissed off because she had to settle for alley sex.
I never find those in established power sexy at all; they are too undermined by the layers of deception under which they function to ever be believable. People like Reagan,Thatcher and Bush were only lackeys of the corporate interests & the wealthy. They were weak thugs, in fact, who obtained their self worth doing service.
People like Che Guevara was political but way to much of an idealist to even be accepted in Cuba eventually.
That was sexy. When the power clearly arises out of peoples own resources and humanity and is not bestowed by opinion people become authentic . Mark, I think senses the sexual allure of criminals and antisocial personages who are self made or made in anarchy, not just social functionaries. Morrissey’s appeal is his honest failure to conform, even to rock star standards. Genet’s figures are immanently sexy because of their resistance to conformity. Same with De Sade’s women.
Mark is to me very much a modern aficionado and torchbearer of that deviant/authentic sensability. That is , as I think he knows, very difficult for a journalist; being an esoteric, a poet.
Most people in similar jobs sell out to stupid politically popular causes, if any of them have the capacity to think beyond what will most surely sell. These are not good times for individuals who say what they think and think more than most people are willing to admit.
Mark (and Elly): I’m very much touched by your words, but I suspect I’m doomed to disappoint. And before too long.
I mangled the Mitterand quote by the way. He actually said: ‘The eyes of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe’. Which is a much better line. She didn’t really have Monroe’s mouth of course, you’re right about that, and probably didn’t have Caligula’s eyes either — but the dissonance of those two body parts brought together is rather apt somehow.
I will admit that I fell for the pic of Cameron and his baby girl. But I am putting that down to hormones.
It was done with Photoshop. It was actually Andy Coulson’s nose he was rubbing with his honker.
Haha Mitterand– very funny.
Also, she was more honest than Blair. In A Journey he has claimed he cried for the victims in the Iraq war. Yeah right. But Thatcher was not such a wuss to claim she cried for any of her ‘victims’. She only cried for her own loss of power, which I can’t help but respect. This image is how I shall remember her:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/uknews/5237378/Margaret-Thatchers-years-in-office.html?image=29
I think the best thing to do with Blair, and the thing he will hate most, is to ignore him. I do.
Yes, those certainly weren’t crocodile tears.
And who can forget her immortal line: ‘People who drool and drivel that they care’? It should be on the masthead of The Graun.
You’re right that the best policy, certainly if you want to wind him up, is to ignore Blair. But I can’t quite bring myself to do that — not least because of the way his strange two-headed offspring CleggCam are now in charge.
You have obviously studied all these men much much more closely, than I.
There is something about political power that turns me off even the most handsome of devils.
Though actually I think Thatcher did have sex appeal. I found her the most captivating of all of them. Not least for her astute awareness of the importance of gendered identity in the political arena. She was such a brilliant wicked witch of westminster, and she is the one I dreamed of, as a child.
Thatcher was glamorous — but partly because she knew how to embody power. But what was it Mitterand said: ‘The mouth of Marilyn Monroe, the eyes of Medusa.’ Despite or because of this she was certainly sexy to several front bench Tory MPs, who looked up to her as the stern nanny of their dreams, whilst they set about dismantling the nanny state.
Bill Clinton’s deterioration in the public’s eyes has a lot to do with the shoddy facts which became evident when Hillary came public. As you may know Americans are by and large dumb as slugs about anything anyone actually does other than getting blow jobs in the Oval Office, until behavior hurts sorely personally or becomes too embarrassing to hide . When Clinton betrayed labor and the entire prospect of America being productive by signing NAFTA, which was an unbelievable boost only to large Corporations, he set the stage for economic deterioration. The week after he signed that agreement we lost 150,000 jobs and subsequently hundreds of thousands more to allow the wealthy access to far cheaper labor.
Also, it became known that he purposefully brought about the deaths of over a million Iraqi children(under 10) by denying them water purification medicines and antibiotics(after we had bombed out all of their water supply stations). To me His reputation gave Hillary less than a shining image in association.
I suspect that many people respond to this aspect of all around gluttony with attraction.
I know what you mean but Blair has never managed to manipulate this girl. I don’t like to slag of the populace, but really, in this case, I think everyone has been pathetically gullible. What a COCK he is.
Yes, that is a more succint analysis. But do you remember the waves of orgasmic love that the very mention of his name provoked back in the late 90s? From men and women? So many people kept talking about ‘how good looking he is!’. But please, those TEETH! In addition to the usual transference I suppose we need to factor in a) How unappealing most people are and b) How especially unappealing most politicians are, particularly Gorgon Thatcher and trainspotting Major, the PMs of the previous twenty years.
A similar thing happened with Obama, albeit on a bigger, more American scale. And yet, while Obama is actually quite pretty, he has always struck me as a bit of a cold fish and his much vaunted oratory looks robotic — that switching of the aloft/aloof chin from side to side. He seems unable now to work the magic that, say, Bill Clinton/Elvis did on an audience. And while I was never much of a fan of his, I don’t really see why so many are turning against him now — except that they perhaps had unrealistic expectations in the first place.
Probably it’s all very subjective: I don’t fancy Bill at all, but I did find myself dreaming of him.…
I’m fascinted by Blair’s use of the phrase “emotional intelligence”–known in the trade as E!Q–and his assertion that Brown has none of it.
In theory, emotional intelligence has many dimensions–of which sensing what others want to hear, and using that to manipulate them, is only one. Being alert to one’s own moods and feelings, and identifying them, is another dimension of EIQ. Putting on a positive face when you’re feeling low is another (is that a form of deceit?). It could be argued that when we take all those elements into account, perhaps Charles had a rather better EIQ than Diana.
Does a devotion to principled honesty show a low EIQ? Is the pursuit of truth intellectually intelligent, but emotionally unintelligent?
Is a lie a lie? No, it’s showing “sensitivity to your audience”. Blair’s utter failure to acknowledge the moral dimension of deceit sends a chill up my spine. Perhaps that makes me old-fasioned.
Surely, what Blair describes as “emotional intelligence”, in simpler times, would be the callous arrogance of the psychopath.
Blair’s Catholicism plays a key role in his pathology. Spew enough word-barf, and you convince yourself that you’ve won an argument.
Blair can manipulate an audience. Especially when that audience is himself.
On some measures Charles probably did have a better EIQ than Diana — and Brown than Blair (though Brown of course was the one that was prone to strops and pulling faces in public). Blair’s interest in ‘EIQ’ is entirely self-serving — he’s very proud of his ‘sensitivity’ to his audience. But probably only really interested in the ‘instrumental’ aspects of EIQ.
I’m reminded of Blair’s praise for Brown’s ‘big clunking fist’ around the time of his coronation and his warning to the Tories that it was coming their way. It sounded faintly ridiculous at the time, but we can see it’s pointed ambivalence now. Brown’s ‘big clunking fist’ was a big clunking fist because it had no ‘emotional intelligence’. I’ve often referred to Blair’s drag queen smile, but it is quite remarkable the way that he is willing — eager, even — to characterise himself in ‘feminine’ terms: EIQ, ‘soft power’ etc. etc. I think that Cameron has taken all of this very much on board. E.g. the pictures of him rubbing noses with his new-born daughter released to the press (it almost looked as if Cameron was implying that he’d given birth her himself).
Even Blair’s Catholicism could be cast in those terms too: it’s the ‘Mother’ church which he has followed his wife and mother of his children to. Likewise the theatrical masochism of his own Christ-like poses during and after the Iraq War: ‘This is what I believe. I can do and say no other. Crucify me if you must.’
It’s to bad you British don’t get some down and out lying thugs to feel pretty certain about-at least that they’re just surefire psychopaths; I don’t think you would or could tolerate the kind of behavior we do because America still has that pioneer spirit; beyond principles or scruples of any kind. We don’t think we were hustled into some absurd position by a doxy; We know that we were just fucked so disgustingly that like rape victims we just don’t dare talk about it. We’re taught that all’s fair in wheeling and dealing– apparently in politics as in business.
Can you imagine anyone even thinking of Bush as being like Princess Di? Or even Glenda,(?) the wicked witch of the west. Even someone like Sarah Palin can only be likened to something on the far side of sanity.
Even our presumed best politicians make Tony look girlish in a strange way.