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cyberdad
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21 Jan 2022, 6:38 pm

MaxE wrote:
theprisoner wrote:
MaxE wrote:
I just came across a fun fact that in 2019 two thirds of the Cabinet were products of Public Schools. Something to think about?

Same story In USA. With Princeton, Harvard, Yale. etc. High percentage of graduates dominate the political field. I guess if you really dived into the statistics, you might start to believe that Western Democracies are actually Western Oligarchies.

I think there's a difference. Every empire has its élite Universities. Frances has the École Polytechnique and the École Normale Supériore. Japan has Tokyo University. Entrance to these places is not strictly limited by pedigree. The Public Schools are a unique environment to which the sons of the aristocracy have been sent for generations, from a shockingly tender age, to mold them into a certain sort of person who trusts only his own kind. It's part of what made Britain what it is, along with the gin mills of the Industrial Revolution. Or how chattel Slavery in the South and Puritanism in the North made the US what it is, or how Bushido made Japan what it is.


Being educated in an elite university isn't what distinguishes the upper crust. It's attending an elite school. Many private schools have the right to object to a student on the basis of them having a disability, being poor or not having a redeeming quality (religious denomination, socioeconomic background or not having a talent like academia, music or sport).



Dox47
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21 Jan 2022, 9:20 pm

ToughDiamond wrote:
Image


Huh, he's better looking that I'd realized, I'd always wondered how he'd managed to get a reputation as a womanizer given how goofy he usually looks now.


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ToughDiamond
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21 Jan 2022, 11:40 pm

Dox47 wrote:
Huh, he's better looking that I'd realized, I'd always wondered how he'd managed to get a reputation as a womanizer given how goofy he usually looks now.

Well, he WAS better looking back then, in a carved-out-of-toilet-soap kind of way, but he must have let himself go, or maybe his mother stopped polishing him, or perhaps it's part of his populist image - it's hard to imagine somebody who looks like a scarecrow being a snob. Sad to say, a lot of people seem to find power and high status sexy, regardless of all other traits. Even Prince Charles somehow managed to get at least 2 partners. Then there's Trump.



blitzkrieg
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22 Jan 2022, 1:45 am

I like Boris Johnson's nationalism - but he has had everything in his favour socioeconomically from start to finish (in the race of his life). So he hasn't achieved much at all, really. It was handed to him.

Plus, he's an ultra capitalist, entitled bimbo.



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22 Jan 2022, 6:45 am

Dox47 wrote:
Huh, he's better looking that I'd realized, I'd always wondered how he'd managed to get a reputation as a womanizer given how goofy he usually looks now.
The weird thing though is how that mess of a toddler's haircut he's had for years is cultivated, like Trump's cotton candy.

blitzkrieg wrote:
Plus, he's an ultra capitalist, entitled himbo.
FTFY :wink:


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naturalplastic
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22 Jan 2022, 7:04 am

Dox47 wrote:
ToughDiamond wrote:
Image


Huh, he's better looking that I'd realized, I'd always wondered how he'd managed to get a reputation as a womanizer given how goofy he usually looks now.

8O

OMG. you're right. That IS him!

So...

His current hairstylist has certainly done a great job of curing him of being good looking.

If I get the same "do", and become free of handicaps like ...good looks, and charisma, will I go as far as him, and become the head of state of a country too? :lol:



ToughDiamond
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22 Jan 2022, 12:16 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
If I get the same "do", and become free of handicaps like ...good looks, and charisma, will I go as far as him, and become the head of state of a country too? :lol:

It would be a start. The masses would take you for a man-of-the-people. But strange though it may seem, to a lot of them he does have a kind of charisma. At least he did, before Partygate. I suspect he's ceased to amuse a lot of the ones who supported him before.



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23 Jan 2022, 10:14 pm

naturalplastic wrote:
8O

OMG. you're right. That IS him!

So...

His current hairstylist has certainly done a great job of curing him of being good looking.

If I get the same "do", and become free of handicaps like ...good looks, and charisma, will I go as far as him, and become the head of state of a country too? :lol:


if you grow up in the right, elite circles like Alexander Boris dePfeffel Johnson, you're born and raised for some high power office anyway. Add on top his shameless lying and scapegoating and his skill for diverting attention through humorous but well staged and eventually harmless blunders...

you don't need need charisma if you know how to become famous for a ridiculous haircut, while being a elitist dickhead. ... have you seen Zuckerberg questioned in congress? - if people actually had listened, they'd be up in arms, but they only saw his robotic demeanour and his silly haircut,


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23 Jan 2022, 10:19 pm

blitzkrieg wrote:
I like Boris Johnson's nationalism - but he has had everything in his favour socioeconomically from start to finish (in the race of his life). So he hasn't achieved much at all, really. It was handed to him.

Plus, he's an ultra capitalist, entitled bimbo.


he is using nationalism as a populist means to power. I have no reason to think he cares much for the nation, and he's willing to playi with fire in order to get votes.
As you said it: he's a ultracapitalist.Thst usually means: national limitations for the workers, global freedom for capital.


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Dox47
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24 Jan 2022, 4:02 am

Cornflake wrote:
The weird thing though is how that mess of a toddler's haircut he's had for years is cultivated, like Trump's cotton candy.


Is it, like, a flex? Like, "look at me, I'm so slick I can still get laid/elected even with this ridiculous thing on my head!"? I mean, that is how hipster stuff happens, the rationale really is "I'm so personally cool that I can wear this lame thing and by my own personal style make it cool again", but that hair is something else.

Trump I've always felt got trapped into it, like that weird wrap around comb over became so publicly identified with him that for branding reasons he couldn't change it if he wanted to, which is also hilarious. I wonder if he lets it down on off days around the house? If so, he's maintained amazing discipline not lettings any photos get out, like more discipline than on anything else he's ever done in his life.


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Mikah
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24 Jan 2022, 5:49 am

Dox47 wrote:
Is it, like, a flex? Like, "look at me, I'm so slick I can still get laid/elected even with this ridiculous thing on my head!"? I mean, that is how hipster stuff happens, the rationale really is "I'm so personally cool that I can wear this lame thing and by my own personal style make it cool again", but that hair is something else.


It's all part of playing to our fondness for the British archetype of the bumbling, eccentric, yet unexpectedly intelligent and situationally competent person. Boris cultivated and presented this persona on television some years ago.



Unfortunately it appears to be largely an act, though it has certainly worked for him.


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24 Jan 2022, 6:24 am

shlaifu wrote:
naturalplastic wrote:
8O

OMG. you're right. That IS him!

So...

His current hairstylist has certainly done a great job of curing him of being good looking.

If I get the same "do", and become free of handicaps like ...good looks, and charisma, will I go as far as him, and become the head of state of a country too? :lol:


if you grow up in the right, elite circles like Alexander Boris dePfeffel Johnson, you're born and raised for some high power office anyway. Add on top his shameless lying and scapegoating and his skill for diverting attention through humorous but well staged and eventually harmless blunders...

you don't need need charisma if you know how to become famous for a ridiculous haircut, while being a elitist dickhead. ... have you seen Zuckerberg questioned in congress? - if people actually had listened, they'd be up in arms, but they only saw his robotic demeanour and his silly haircut,


Absolutely spot on! Nothing to add.


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Cornflake
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24 Jan 2022, 8:09 am

Dox47 wrote:
Cornflake wrote:
The weird thing though is how that mess of a toddler's haircut he's had for years is cultivated, like Trump's cotton candy.
Is it, like, a flex? Like, "look at me, I'm so slick I can still get laid/elected even with this ridiculous thing on my head!"? I mean, that is how hipster stuff happens, the rationale really is "I'm so personally cool that I can wear this lame thing and by my own personal style make it cool again", but that hair is something else.
Beats me how anyone can ruffle that mess up in a mirror and think "yep, lookin' good and ready to go". But Johnson does; it's a part of the whole "crumpled look" he's aiming for - plus, what Mikah said.

Quote:
Trump I've always felt got trapped into it, like that weird wrap around comb over became so publicly identified with him that for branding reasons he couldn't change it if he wanted to, which is also hilarious. I wonder if he lets it down on off days around the house? If so, he's maintained amazing discipline not lettings any photos get out, like more discipline than on anything else he's ever done in his life.
I think Trump does it for vanity, like really hating that he's going bald - and like Johnson, there must come that moment in the mirror each day. It just takes much longer to achieve it.

But Trump can't stop all photos of that thing on his head getting a life of its own and attempting lift-off - a Google images selection:
https://www.google.com/search?channel=f ... ir+in+wind


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ToughDiamond
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24 Jan 2022, 12:48 pm

Sounds about right to me.



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24 Jan 2022, 3:55 pm

shlaifu wrote:
blitzkrieg wrote:
I like Boris Johnson's nationalism - but he has had everything in his favour socioeconomically from start to finish (in the race of his life). So he hasn't achieved much at all, really. It was handed to him.

Plus, he's an ultra capitalist, entitled bimbo.


he is using nationalism as a populist means to power. I have no reason to think he cares much for the nation, and he's willing to playi with fire in order to get votes.
As you said it: he's a ultracapitalist.Thst usually means: national limitations for the workers, global freedom for capital.

Not sure I would call Johnson ultra-capitalist. Cameron and Osborne, sure, makes sense - their whole thing was that the government should be doing less and the private sector should be doing more.

Johnson on the other hand is much more economically interventionist. One could generously describe his interventionism as tackling regional inequalities, or cynically describe it as a way of opening opportunities for cronyism under the guise of cheap slogans. Personally I think cynicism is warranted. But in any case, I don’t think Johnson is overly ideological. He’ll do almost anything if he thinks it will benefit him.



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24 Jan 2022, 11:57 pm

This comment I am making is going to be somewhat off topic, relative to other comments in this thread, but I did not want to make a new thread.

Winston Churchill has his critics - but in my opinion, they are all wrong about him. Yes, he was a racist (but who wasn't, back in the 1940's)?! You cannot judge a person for things they grew up with, had embedded in their brain cells from childhood etc.

Anyway, here is the man, the legend, Winston Churchill, rabble rousing a supposed nation of shopkeepers, as Napoleon had historically portrayed the British as. That fact only made it more embarrassing for him, when he lost in battle to the British, who he saw as beneath him.