Queen Elizabeth II (1926-2022)

hail king charlie

  On 9/10/2022 at 12:59 AM, timmy otoole said:

hail king charlie

 

 

 

 

 

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I just watched the documentary about that dude. What a complete monster. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/empire/id1639561921

no shit ...... and you think anyone gets near the royals without being heavily vetted first ??? idk.......an easy mistake to make i guess

Good riddance. Even if she was by all measure "better" than her ancestors, there can be no use in eulogizing a despot who held the hereditary title and level of power she did. Fingers crossed Charles dissolves the rest. If they were to abolish the monarchy, redistribute some of the wealth to pay reparations to the many peoples wronged*, returned Scotland to its own self rule, ditto for Wales, let Ireland reunite, dissolve the commonwealth etc, there'd still be money left over to help with the economic situation Brexit brought on.

*It is said that the most commonly celebrated holiday the world over, on many different days throughout the calendar year is that which marks independence from Britain

who gives up their power unless they have to? which means it wasn't really power in the first place.

I'm already sick of the postmortem worship of this crone

Yeah I’ve had enough as well. Time to avoid the news for the foreseeable future. 

  On 9/10/2022 at 5:27 AM, beerwolf said:

Yeah I’ve had enough as well. Time to avoid the news for the foreseeable future. 

at least the next 7 years. maybe the next 11... or 19. 

  On 9/10/2022 at 6:25 AM, ignatius said:

at least the next 7 years. maybe the next 11... or 19. 

The media still wheel out Diana specials every year, so I'm afraid we will never hear the end of this 

  On 9/10/2022 at 12:30 AM, prdctvsm said:

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  On 9/10/2022 at 6:25 AM, ignatius said:

at least the next 7 years. maybe the next 11... or 19. 

Yep. It’s getting like that. Climate apocalypse, wildlife apocalypse, cost of living apocalypse, China apocalypse, Russia apocalypse, fuel and energy apocalypse, economic recession apocalypse, Trump apocalypse and now The Queen apocalypse. I’m sure there’s more to add to the list but I’m down the pub for the first time in about 6 months (honest) and that’ll do for now. Hah! Oh yeah, let’s add the price of a pint apocalypse.

Its all doom and fucking gloom

  On 9/10/2022 at 4:03 AM, rek said:

who gives up their power unless they have to? which means it wasn't really power in the first place.

((edit: I misunderstood what rek meant but I'll leave my rant here because it took me ages to write.))

Go back 500 years or so. Everywhere was ruled by Kings or Emperors or high priests or whatever - essentially bullies who had fought their way to the top, amassed huge amounts of power and then claimed to be chosen by god or whatever and generally decided to make their power hereditary.

Concentrated power like that is hard to break down. Its not uncommon for another bully and their army to go and fight and take the place of a king but thats not really change. Progress that takes that concentrated power and dilutes it back to the people takes a lot of time, a lot of struggle and battles and bloodshed, slowly building imperfect civil structures and struggling against corruption and nepotism.

A vaguely democratic senate or parliament with the monarchy reduced to a mostly ceremonial role? That didn't just happen, that took generations of struggle and war and bloodshed and an eventual settlement

Or a republic without monarchy? Even harder

The idea that the law applies equally to everyone? The kings didn't come up with that, people fought for that. It was a hard won concession.

So when you see the ultra rich doing their best to influence government (they're very good at it) or evading justice (they're good at that too) its not a new thing, its a constant pressure from the rich and powerful to nudge things back to the way they used to be, if they can get away with it now and then, if people aren't paying enough attention. It takes a conscious civil effort and vigiliance and education to stop things slipping further in that direction.

  On 9/10/2022 at 4:58 PM, Rubin Farr said:

 

 

 

  On 9/10/2022 at 9:59 PM, zazen said:

What? Thats nonsense.

Go back 500 years or so. Everywhere was ruled by Kings or Emperors or high priests or whatever - essentially bullies who had fought their way to the top, amassed huge amounts of power and then claimed to be chosen by god or whatever and generally decided to make their power hereditary.

Concentrated power like that is hard to break down. Its not uncommon for another bully and their army to go and fight and take the place of a king but thats not really change. Progress that takes that concentrated power and dilutes it back to the people takes a lot of time, a lot of struggle and battles and bloodshed, slowly building imperfect civil structures and struggling against corruption and nepotism.

A vaguely democratic senate or parliament with the monarchy reduced to a mostly ceremonial role? That didn't just happen, that took generations of struggle and war and bloodshed and an eventual settlement

Or a republic without monarchy? Even harder

The idea that the law applies equally to everyone? The kings didn't come up with that, people fought for that. It was a hard won concession.

 

So when you see the ultra rich doing their best to influence government (they're very good at it) or evading justice (they're good at that too) its not a new thing, its a constant pressure from the rich and powerful to nudge things back to the way they used to be, if they can get away with it now and then, if people aren't paying enough attention. It takes a conscious civil effort and vigiliance and education to stop things slipping further in that direction.

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it requires a sufficient amount of time and/or power to overtake a pre-existing power. what i mean to say is that i doubt Charles III is going to start ceding power. it will probably be the opposite.  twitter for example is worth 60 billion and the monarchy about 30 (on paper) but twitter isn't in any position to make pronouncements or conduct world leadership on its own. (the president of the usa isn't even allowed to make his own pronouncements) and Elon Musk might have 10 times more money than the entire british monarchy (again, on paper) but something tells me he can't simply buy it, and i doubt they'd sell. there's kind of a supernatural level of power in these bloodline type royalty things. not to banter or anything.

Rek, I got the wrong end of the stick about what you meant, but i ended up typing out something I'd been thinking for ages so I'll leave it there

  On 9/10/2022 at 10:27 PM, rek said:

it requires a sufficient amount of time and/or power to overtake a pre-existing power. what i mean to say is that i doubt Charles III is going to start ceding power. it will probably be the opposite.  twitter for example is worth 60 billion and the monarchy about 30 (on paper) but twitter isn't in any position to make pronouncements or conduct world leadership on its own. (the president of the usa isn't even allowed to make his own pronouncements) and Elon Musk might have 10 times more money than the entire british monarchy (again, on paper) but something tells me he can't simply buy it, and i doubt they'd sell. there's kind of a supernatural level of power in these bloodline type royalty things. not to banter or anything.

comparing twitter to the monarchy seems to be missing social and historical context, political influence, and raw political power over the entire UK altogether.  twitter is not worth nearly that much, they could be replaced with a 5kb p2p application, this value you've admitted is on paper means nothing

afaik the royal families across the world had eventually adopted the "new money" approach to things and have holding companies for their assets, including ownership of land, resources, investments, etc?

because the bane of their existence was/is the financial and industrial strata of society that in short time gained huge power and could compete (and outright) evict the royal influence, which is why the royal families remained secluded in a more or less dignified fringes of power-society.

i think Elizabeth's prestige mostly came from her history and diplomatic relations. she was able to maintain a fairly decent public image of noble heritage and national pride, but that started to really fall apart since many "scandals" like Charles and Camilla, Diana's death, family shenanigans, the prince being a pedo, etc. Charles was trying to do some half-hearted environmental campaigning, but it's all mainly self-serving. Brexit was obviously a deal she could not refuse. Scotland and Ireland, and Wales.... what's left?

21st century is the time of world wide financial monarchs and their empires. which is basically the same thing as before

  On 9/11/2022 at 10:17 AM, Squee said:

 

 

 

 

 

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they had a window of entire seconds to move that box, you don't just embarass the king on his first day wtf.