Loudmouth

You've written quite a lot to respond to and quite I'm pushed for time today. I'll respond in a day or so.

Killaney: The slanging match – i.e. when things got nasty and personal – was started by you. In other words … it’s all YOUR fault, Mr Happy.

Killarney: 2nd Page 5th post. Class Wars, Political.
Killarney: 4th Page, 1st post. Gender Wars, Political.
Killarney: 4th Page, 5th post. Information Wars, Political.
Killarney: 4th Page 6th post. Personal attack on my supposed political leanings. Political.

I guess if it was up to people in the Peace Movement we would all be speaking German or Japanese now.

I can see you are in favour of giving into the latest lot of "peaceful people." Have you brought your head bag yet? Better get in early.

Left up to your kind we'll be all speaking Arabic soon. Won't that be great for the Feminist Movement.

Now back to the Mondo Dolls. I have the four "Coles, Funny Picture Books" & the four Supplementary books. They are a great read, especially for history buffs, somewhat scary by to days standards. Showing exactly what people thought, behaved & believed in the 19th Century.

They would be a good read those psychologists & Philosophers amongst us. Historically comparing todays thinking with what they thought was good & correct back then.

Loudmouth

‘But schooling is not the only way we learn. ‘

No, it’s not. We are equally educated by the main cultural narratives created and maintained by the media, film/TV, literature, art, music, folklore and legend, prevailing political and economic policies and many other influences. Our own individual temperaments, personalities, family backgrounds and social circles tend to influence what narratives we are mostly drawn to.

I totally agree that schooling is a ‘sifting mechanism’ – designed more to mould than to enlighten. Schools mostly practise quite blatant elitism, praising and encouraging those who have the necessary talents and mental attitudes to enforce and maintain the prevailing system, and ignoring, discouraging and often punishing those who don’t.

As far as history is concerned, I’ve learned a thousand times more about our past than I ever learned at school. But before I could successfully do that, I had to unlearn most of my school history lessons.

‘And it's strange how trying to understand history becomes more important as one gets older.’

Yes, that happens to many people. Family history becomes particularly interesting to people as they get older. There is also a proliferation of local history publishing from older, retired people.

‘If I had more time, I would love to immerse myself in the economic and social history of that period from the Roman Empire through to the late Middle Ages, 300-1500; and especially the history of trade between South-East Asia, the Mediterranean and China in those years. I want to KNOW how the world got this way :)’

Oh, yes … indeed. These are two areas that are very much neglected by mainstream history curriculums. The period often belittled as the ‘Dark Ages’ was actually a golden age for several Old European countries, especially Ireland. And the whole history of what was a flourishing system of trade between Europe, the Middle East and Asia for many centuries is equally neglected. (And don’t forget Africa, which was a thriving continent of quite advanced civilisations in those days before the slave trade decimated it.)

jayb

In answer to my accusation that you started the slanging match, you responded with a list of my post contents, starting with this:

'Killarney: 2nd Page 5th post. Class Wars, Political.'

To review that particular post, I made an values assessment of the Mondo figures I had Googled - based on how often certain types of figures appeared. There was nothing at all personal or 'slanging' in that post. It was entirely an expression of my own observations and opinion.

However, it's very revealing that you equate a post about class wars with 'a slanging match'. It speaks volumes about how you view and respond to the behaviour of people whose opinions you don't agree with. It seems that you deliberately take personal offence in order to give yourself justification to attack them personally.

I've been on forums like this for many years - long enough to know that the goal of this kind of tactic is to intimidate and humiliate people into silence, in the hope of discrediting their views. These tactics are as pervasive as they are tedious.

As for your dystopian scenario of a world in which we would be speaking German, Japanese or Arabic, I could think of worse fates - like living in a world controlled entirely by banksters and corporate monopolies (ugh ....!).

If Germany had won WWI and WWII, nothing much would be different, except that we'd have a different set of countries telling us that they are the good guys - and saying it in German, instead of Transatlantic-accented English.

Hi Killarney,

In your crack at Jayb, you assert that:

"As for your dystopian scenario of a world in which we would be speaking German, Japanese or Arabic, I could think of worse fates - like living in a world controlled entirely by banksters and corporate monopolies (ugh ....!).

"If Germany had won WWI and WWII, nothing much would be different, except that we'd have a different set of countries telling us that they are the good guys - and saying it in German, instead of Transatlantic-accented English."

WWII: I vaguely remember English-language Japanese money which was to be used in Australia: my dad kept some in a little tin. So, perhaps, for a short time, yes, we might have been forced to speak Japanese. But given the treatment of prisoners-of-war by the Japs, I suspect that that would not have lasted long: certainly, Aboriginal people would have been exterminated quickly, but Anglo-Australians would have met the same fate soon afterwards. Yes, I'm accusing the Japs of planning genocide.

As for the Germans and WWII: If the battles at Kokoda, Tobruk and Stalingrad in 1942 had failed, and the fascists had won those, they had already declared that they would divide up the world between them.

For your information, since you appear to be unaware of it, the Germans were already exterminating Jews by the millions, Roma, Russians, leftists, homosexuals, mental defectives, cripples - and it seemed likely that, once these non-Aryans etc. had been wiped off the face of the earth, in the tens of millions, the Nazis would start on the other non-Aryans, in the hundreds of millions, in order to impose their perverted notion of an Aryan Utopia on half the world.

Now THAT's dystopia.

You're an idiot, Killarney.

Thanks Joe, I, was biting my tongue for fear of being banned for at least a month.