Slightly off topic: any reading tips on WW1 (preferrably first-hand trench narratives) would be highly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

Yeah, i know that quote:
Asterix en de Lauwerkrans van Caesar
(or Le Lauriers de César, or Asterix and the Laurel Wreath…)

“But what about the animals? Those poor, starved animals…”

Too bad ****uyama doesn’t have a six-year old son for ghostwriter. His thinking would certainly grow out of the simplistic level he seems stuck at. Kaplan did write some good stuff, but he seems to have lost it somewhere. Guess he doesn’t base his theories on literature anymore (his best work is written along the lines of Céline).

As for Israel: although i’m of course only an superficial distant observer, it does seem to me that their security issues hijack the politicial attention away from true domestic problems. I could be wrong of course, but i’m under the impression that Israeli citizens cast their vote more based on their thoughts on how to deal with the external threat (…should have kept that threat extern… OOMPH! Ooops, sorry, got carried away, apologies for the about-to-erupt-flamewar) than on true domestic issues: the economy, social inequality, taxes, education, the lot. I have no doubt the Israeli government adresses domestic issues. But i doubt any member of the Israeli government will get an ulcer about traffic issues, but the Palestinian matter on the other hand… Don’t forget that for a martial government (like Israel’s, the US’ or Liberia’s) it’s quite easy to blame domestic problems on ‘the enemy’: “Of course we would spend more money on healthcare/infrastructure/xxx, but unfortunately we need all the money to counter the enemy!” (Really smart martial governments also cut taxes, which makes this excuse even stronger :rolleyes: ).

As for Israeli citizens still going out: i can’t see why not. Most people want to have a life regardless, and the Palestinian suicide squads aren’t killing nearly as many Israelis as the local traffic does. Benjamin, i’m sure your parents visited the Delhaize supermarkets in the mid-1980s as well?

A commonly accepted image of an ‘enemy’ (=a real or percieved threat to the group/club/state/culture) sure is a nice way to denounce internal problems. Better still, it makes people accept that they themselves as individuals are expendable for the wellbeing/security of the whole group. And since the leadershipyour group is also it’s external representation, you will happily support him despite your own possible differences with it – the latter of which is of particular interest in democratic societies, BTW.

I always thought ‘1984’ by Orwell sums it up quite nicely. Perpetual war is an ideal excuse for the existance of a state and the rejection of individual persons.

Also, a brilliant scholar (cough, cough!) like ****uyama also gives evidence that peaceful states like Iceland, Switzerland, Sweden, Finland, New Zealand or Malaysia are far better off than nice martial states like the Yugoslavia/Serbia/Croatia of the 1990s, Congo, Lybia or Israel? An external enemy is a great way to distract the population from domestic problems, nothing more. If your society is domestically well-organised and the people are reasonably happy and secure, there is no need for war.

I have a very vivid imagination. I know for sure there is no such thing as the “Key Publishing Ltd Aviation Forum” in real life, and i seriously doubt something with a daft name like ‘Internet’ exists either.

The running man

Geforce,
Please explain to me the difference between Schwarzenegger (i’d love him to become Guv as might eventually learn a few people how to write his name. Or perhaps they should translate his name to English? Gouvernor Blacknigger sounds cool!) and Larry Flynt. Both started out as absolutely nothing, and both made very profitable careers with cheap physical entertainment. And while Arnie has been pushing a political career for years by showing up at Republican conventions and Oprah, Flynt has been putting a lot of work in freedom of speech issues.

Fun thing though, if you take a look at the cast of Predator…
Arnold Schwarzenegger runs for guv in California,
Jesse Ventura was governor of Minnesota
Sonny Landham (Billy, the Native American one) ran for guv in Arizona…

No problem Dennis,

I’m absolutely sure i wouldn’t have liked Shostakovich when i was 11. And i doubt i was weird enough back then to enjoy a good bit of commie agitprop back then too 😀 The ones i’ve seen so far were either brilliant (Eisenstein of course, but also a few other directors of his ‘school’: high-contrast, angled camera and other stuff nobody in the West seemed to think of in the 1920s) or such absolute crap they were hilarious in their own right. The latter including a great 1980s Rambo-ripoff… no matter how bad you imagine it, it is in fact worse. Great fun to watch – well, at least in my insignificant opinion.

I think Shostakivich’ complete works are quite easily available now. Perhaps you could visit your local classical music store and listen to a few bits of the Fall of Berlin – even at my age i sometimes surprise myself when comparing my taste in music from way back to my current collection.

I do think quite a few wonderful movies have been made in the former USSR over the last years. Examples:
Prisoner of the Mountains/Kavkaski Plennik is a very touching story about two Russian soldiers being taken PoW somewhere in the Caucasian mountains. The final scene is hair-raising even though nothing really happens… just think ‘menacing’ and Mi-24…
Another gem is Luna Papa, actually a Euro-Russian-Tadjik film. I guess this film can best be described as a combination of Russian insanity, and Central-Asian colourfullness, and it is about a pregnant girl on a queste for the guy who impregnated her. For me it was a great depression-cure… partly because of the way that An-2 is being flown around!

Pendennis,

There is plenty of brilliant Soviet propaganda cinema aroundd just as well. Brononosets Potemkin and Aleksandr Nevskii (both by Eisenstein, who was truelly a genius) are both great films, but terribly propagandistic.

Interestingly enough, the music score for ‘The Fall of Berlin’ you disliked so much was written by Shostakovich, and it appears to be highly acclaimed by quite a few people who are in to that kind of classical music. The Hymn of the US Marines is of course a lot more catchy, especially when you’re young…