Posts by giovanni tiso
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Well, Pat Buchanan... you can't really argue with somebody like that.
You still aren't answering the basic question. Why would China want to go to war with us? They are sitting on the largest pile of money in the world. If it's our resources they want, we are perfectly capable of privatising them and selling them to them. Read the 2025 Taskforce report, it's exactly what Brash is advocating: total privatisation and no barrier to foreign capital. Once you've ceded all your assets, who needs sovereignty?
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If you're claiming any of that has been done by the US to their own citizens on any sort of organised scale than I think you're the one who should be supplying citations.
Quite apart from the various forms of oppression they have perpretated on their own citizenry (genocide, slavery, institutional racism, the war on drugs), they have and are doing plenty to other people, including their allies. And we are other people. So what's your point again?
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they did have history! Well, I mean, the turok?
It's a ritualistic history, though, no? Based on a sort of cycle, not progressing. The tribes fight, the turok comes along and brings peace, then they fight until another turok comes around. Meanwhile, they remain hunter/gatherers, always and forever.
And the gender roles? And the gender roles? Left unexplained really, except for shamanistic Mum & bow-leader Dad - there were women hunters and warriors-
The implication of "now you found yourself a woman" was that there is no homosexuality amongst the Na'vi, and obviously no promiscuity since you mate for life. There are some female hunters, true, but most of them seemed to be males. And the lineal king and queen had very specific roles as you note - she the spiritual leader, he the chief - which I suspect would be mirrored in the rest of the society. Plus they're hunter/gatherers, what kind of permutations could there be?
he wanted wolves his hero would lead in the dance of war
I did say crypto-fascist, didn't I? :-)
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just thinking - is "Avatar" racist?
Lessee. Its idealised society are a monoracial group with no minorities, extremely well defined gender roles (plus, they mate for life!), a rigid and immutable political hierarcy and no history. That's about as crypto-fascist an ideal as you can come up with without taking off your trousers.
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I disagree with his assertions, but I don't think he should be slammed for asking the question in the first place.
Aw come on! He suggested one of China's weapons in this war are the immigrants that have entered the country in recent years, didn't he?
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None of which the US has generally done to their own citizens or their allies.
We had state sponsored terrorism in my country with the external aid of the CIA, actually. Not to mention the Italian nationals killed while at school or hiking in the mountains, or on board planes, or outside of Bagdad by members of the US military, both known and unknown, but never prosecuted.
Also, have you tried being liberated by the US recently? Those new allies are having a terrific time of it I hear.
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There is a general assumption that Victorians were prudes, which simply is not supported by the variety of art works they produced.
This chap was a Victorian, right?
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I for one welcome our Chinese overlords.
Oh dear, good old PublicAddress, eh? Dissenting POV's welcome, as long as they don't actually dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy...
Or aren't ridicolous, crude, stupid and racist, yes. You reminded me that in Milan when Dad was a lad somebody had changed the standard Lord's prayer thusly
O Gesù d'amor acces
A Milan gh'è rivà tuti i cines
O mio caro buon Gesù
A Milan li vorum pùJesu mine, of love aflame,
Milan's been taken over by the Chinese
Jesu mine, whom I adore,
We don't want them here no morePlus ça change, etc.
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Brilliant, Steve, I'm in tears here.
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I heard the statues were originally painted to look lifelike and only through the decay of their society do we have the unpainted rawness and broken limbs etc.
You mean Greek statues? It's a very vexed question in art history, but I think it is generally accepted now that they were painted. Of course with some of them you can still see traces of the paint, especially around the eyes. Later statuary inspired to the Greeks, like Michelangelo's, wasn't painted though.
The broken limbs I'm pretty sure are accidental. :-)