Smaller bits stolen from B&T:
dsquared: “If you look at really durable dictatorships they’re nearly always mass membership political parties.”
Russian TV: “
Assuming that everything on reality TV is fake seems to me less a product of Soviet cynicism and more robust common sense, butcalling your reality TV company “Potemkin Productions” is a nice touch
“
One sub-point of Paul Mason’s revolution-analysis tour de force: “
are we creating a complete disconnect between the values and language of the state and those of the educated young? Egypt is a classic example – if you hear the NDP officials there is a time-warped aspect to their language compared to that of young doctors and lawyers on the Square. But there are also examples in the UK: much of the political discourse – on both sides of the House of Commons – is treated by many young people as a barely intelligible “noise” – and this goes wider than just the protesters.
As Sudanese police lure activists to a fake ‘protest’, and arrest them: “
any calculation of the actual effect of social media on protest comes down to the question “how smart are the local cops?”
‘
Zombies are workers, vampires are aristocrats, werewolves are yokels — what are the middle-class monsters? Answers: possessed people, doppelgangers.And:
Haunted houses might factor in there too – is there anything more fundamentally middle-class than the desire for home ownership even though it might eat you?