BF2S Forums The Dead Pool

he thinks he's trolling and triggering by raising such awesome points as 'why do you have state funerals for leaders that die in office' or 'look, your rich nitwit uses the same tax-minimizing schemes as our rich nitwits'.

america is objectively the most unequal society in the rich western world. inequality off the charts. and you started out your great experiment in 'freedom' by explicitly rejecting the 'unfair' monarchy. i'm much more interested in critiquing the capitalist system that produces mass inequality and systems of oppression and injustice, here and now, today, than getting upset over the fact that approx. 5 people get given a nice life on a platter. it's not even in my top20 of pressing issues.

the working man gets another free bank holiday, every year, in perpetuity, now because of her funeral. a victory for labour.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

As a NJ person, anything that might cause mac to be 30 seconds late for a coffee is tyranny. He probably drives around railroad crossings too.

https://youtu.be/c412hqucHKw

From a certain point of view, hitching these criticisms to the queen's death is in poor taste. On the other hand, some of these points made are not new, and they will now remain.

If the king goes on an "apology tour," American conservatives would lose their freakin' minds. Maybe I'll get to stop hearing about royals this and royals that and incessant recountings of royal family drama. Make it stop.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

As a NJ person, anything that might cause mac to be 30 seconds late for a coffee is tyranny. He probably drives around railroad crossings too.

mac is aggrieved that he’s a mongrel from no distinction living on a turnpike in post-industrial america. why else do you think he spends 1000s of hours playing nerd games about kings and queens and constructing elaborate RTS dynasties?

do you think our resident fake catholic, who was attracted to the church nexus’s of its evocative symbolism, pomp, ceremony - the incense and the gold and the obligatory mystifications of long Church history - is really bothered by curious and archaic customs and superstitious hoodoo?

tbh the sort of american who emphasises their ‘roots’ and their ‘scottish great-grandma’ or ‘swedish genes from ancestry.com’ is much more tolerable than this frustrated geek typology.

I don't really mind hearing stories about someone's multi-greats came to America in 17-/18- whatever, their time here, and their time back where they came from. It's fairly uncommon for me to find people who bother to keep that sort of history.

My interest wanes when they go on for the umpteenth time about "my Irish ancestors this-n-that and dontcha know we couldn't get jobs in America." What 'we' is this? You're like what, 7% Irish by now? You probably have a higher proportion of blood from relatives who looked down their noses at them. Yes, I'm sure your civil war vet forefather was so proud of his country. That's why he moved all the way out west just to be away from it all. Maybe some of the same types of stories mentioned in ¶1, but obnoxious delivery.

SuperJail Warden wrote:

All I am saying is that we let the lady rest in peace instead of ruining the working's man's day with a parade.

we get a day off in aus bro blessed.

unnamednewbie13 wrote:

Mac is just mad he doesn't get an extra day off to fuse to his couch with a big plate of microwave nuggies.

thats what he gets for being a catholic. if hes at least an anglican he can say its a religious funeral as the head of the church died.

people who criticise those who are sad over the queen's death, or who want to pooh-pooh the funeral arrangements 'because colonialism', fundamentally misunderstand her role and iconicity in 20th century britain. she didn't represent nostalgia for a lost empire; the modern royal family and the queen enjoyed high ratings because, to most brits, they represented a 'positive' vision of the post-'45 settlement, the new social democratic state, etc. the windsors don't really stand for the victorian empire and the chauvinism of imperialism. but critics of monarchism or the british empire tout court kind of miss that distinction; there's a reason they rebranded from 'the Monarchy' (austere, institutional, hierarchical) to 'the Royal Family' (domestic, just like you n me folks!).

it's exasperating having to defend the entire history of the british empire, or 'things that happened in elizabeth's lifetime, on her watch', as if that's what british people are cheering. elizabeth is an icon of a century of mostly peaceful managed decline, of a 'New Elizabethan Age', precisely after empire. her approval ratings are totally in step with the high approval ratings and civic pride of another great contemporary institution, the NHS. that's how you understand our conception of the modern royal family: as part of the texture and day-to-day life of a new social democratic state, one that we do mourn for and are generally nostalgic for, the process of reshaping (and imperial downsizing) that commenced after ww2 and ran through the 50s and 60s. that's far more germane to our sad thoughts about the queen than the long history of rapacious colonialism and absolute monarchy.

nobody is mourning the absolute sovereignity or royal prerogatives of the monarchy or the glories of the globe-girdling empire.



i mean, look: half the queuers are people from the commonwealth and former colonies. this is not an exercise in imperial nostalgia or of feeling sad about the loss of absolutist power.

of course if you ask anyone to clearly state the reasons for their sympathies or why they're 'thanking the queen' (what has she done for you, etc?) you're going to struggle to get a clear answer. part of the business of every state, monarchy or not, is its self-mystification. power has that effect: it's totem, it's fetish. read freud and stop bothering the weeping proles.

Last edited by uziq (2022-09-14 09:33:30)

i was under the impression that the bank holiday would get written into legislation later on.

both businesses and the unions are petitioning for it, anyway.

Last edited by uziq (2022-09-14 09:42:13)

ah, fact checked. misinterpreted that wrong over the radiowaves. a lot of static in korea.

still, hardly see how the queen's passing has affected 'the working man' adversely in any way. it's a day off.

another aspect to the queenie thing: she was probably the most famous person of the entire 20th century, that being an entirely mediatised world. monarchy used to take place behind an opaque and impregnable veil of secrecy, in a closed and insular environment to which only courtiers were admitted, but the 'modern' royal family under the queen opened up the doors, as it were, and let the entire populace 'see inside' like never before.

her entire life has been captured on film reels, photographs, news and print media, etc. from her ascension to her death, the entire nation has followed it with an unfamiliar intimacy. that no doubt makes people more susceptible to the sentimental wobbling lip. not saying it's rational, but it's just a salient aspect to the modern-day monarchy.