BS: useful versus useless idiots...???

Subject: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 12:42 PM

seems to me 'useful' idiots are at least positively well intentioned folks no matter how naive
or cynically exploited by genuinely malevolent agencies...???

'useless' idiots are those we should beware of...???


Ok mates.. let's see how long this thread lasts...

[Jim - please in the wise words of DtG "Jim, stay with the program :-)"]

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: keberoxu
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 12:55 PM

What is the name for us cowardly members
who get scared off of BS threads
when the p***ing contests begin?

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Senoufou
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 12:57 PM

keberoxu, we're 'The Sensible Ones' !!

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 12:58 PM

Well intentioned possibly, but when Corbyn was described as a "useful idiot" it meant useful to the Russians, and an idiot not to see the truth.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:00 PM

The Russia thread is still active, so why start this one?

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:04 PM

""Jim, stay with the program :-)"
Moi, why Moi!!!
You been at the communion wine again :-) ?
Jim

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:29 PM

Thinking aloud...

"hmmmm... why start this thread...???

Well if it is within the capabilities of some mudcatters to make minimal - only absolutely essential references - to the 'R' and 'I' words,
then this thread could serve a 'useful' and topical purpose...???"

As has been mentioned, there is already a thread in existence devoted to nothing but robust discussion of the 'R' word....!!!

This thread could / should be about a more specific adjunct of the 'R'/'I' issues...
Concentrating on UK politicians ideally...

But what happens here next is up to whoever fancies a friendly debate...

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:34 PM

It is never friendly with people who want to win all the time PFR :-( I know the Russia thread is still open but I see the other one you started has been closed by such a person. Sad.

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Iains
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:39 PM

Useful idiots in this case dispute the government's line.
Useless idiots are incapable of recognising that there may be a problem.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:39 PM

DtG - and annoyingly / hilariously, said person was allowed 'the last word'.....

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:41 PM

errrmmm.. that could have been "annoyingly / hilariously / ironically"...

but since Alanis Morissette I've lost confidence in using the word "ironic"...

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Mr Red
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 01:45 PM

at the end of the day, when THEY take a tilt at your favourite person/group it is a stab, when THEY go for the others it is critique/satire/objective.

At the end of the day it never ends!

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 02:46 PM

Maybe it does when the fat lady sings?

Am I still allowed to say that?

:D t G

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 02:49 PM

I don't think it was so much allowed to have the last word, PFR, as posting the last straw. But of course some will never see it that way because the have a different morality, speak a different language and live on a different planet;-),

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 02:50 PM

DTGif you are allowed to think it but not say it can you say for instance

" I THINK... Maybe it does when the fat lady sings?"

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 03:01 PM

I think you can but that is a moral conundrum for those far wiser than I!

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 03:19 PM

My mrs has put on a lot of weight over the last few years,
and surprisingly for someone born and raised in the Welsh valleys
completely tone deaf...[great memory for lyrics though...]

...and she absolutely loves singing out aloud around the house...

one reason I spend so much time hiding upstairs in the bathroom or computer den...

I guess I'd have to classify her in that regard as 'usefuless'...???

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: keberoxu
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 12:07 PM

Dave the Gnome had to bring up the proverbial fat lady.
I still think the first of the fat ladies
was the one who sings
"Pace, Pace, mio Dio,"
after I forget how many full acts of
Verdi's La Forza Del Destino.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Senoufou
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 01:32 PM

When we as children first got a TV (tiny thing in black and white) we watched The Last Night of the Proms every year. My daft mother used to wait with baited breath for the fat lady she called 'Big Bertha' to be 'wheeled on' to sing Rule Britannia.
The introductory music would set her off giggling, and she'd laugh until she nearly burst when Big Bertha sang "This was the Cha-Tah". By the end ("Britons never never never..."etc) we were all sobbing with laughter, tears rolling down our faces.
Looking back, I can't quite understand why we laughed so much. I remember my stern father being nearly hysterical!

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: robomatic
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 02:28 PM

When Jim wrote "You been at the communion wine again?" I read that as communism wine.

I need to start these threads with me glasses on.

One man's 'useful idiot' is another man's devotion to ideas over practical matters.

I don't know who created the term, I think it is attributed to Lenin, but it can apply to anyone who is regarded as wrongfully enlisted in a cause that might actually not be in his/her best interests or that of the 'class' he/she sposedly is a member of.

You can backdate it and say the French exchequer/ royalty were useful idiots to aid the Americans in rebellion against the English in the 1770s because it both impoverished the French government leading to the French Revolution AND got the English uninvolved with most of America so it concentrated more on whipping Napoleon and colonizing India.

Getting back to the Soviets, they are a prime case of how ideals can be perverted by violence and ruthless pursuit of war aims. The leader of the Soviet secret service was Dzerzhinsky, who made a lot of money for them by getting displaced Russian royalty to give money to agents of the Cheka in the mistaken belief that they were investing in anti-Soviet plots.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 08:17 PM

"keberoxu, we're 'The Sensible Ones' !!"

You're a Tory. So that's a baseless claim....

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Joe Offer
Date: 09 Apr 18 - 09:08 PM

Useful idiots....the ones that vote for ME????

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Donuel
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 10:22 AM

Its interesting how Robo puts facts in order.
So does Iains whose heart's across the border.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 11:06 AM

What's a communist wine?

These bourgeois capitalists are ruining the world...

(Better if said aloud)

:D tG

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 11:16 AM

Lambrini - the true proletarian bottled plonk...!!!


[actually one chilled bottle aint too bad.. 2 bottles and you begin to feel your teeth disolving...]

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 10 Apr 18 - 12:15 PM

I heard on radio2 news on Sunday a comment that "Boris Johnson has accused Jeremy Corbyn of acting as Russia's useful idiot".

I was a little surprised at this, but noticed on later news programmes that the word 'acting' had been dropped.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Mr Red
Date: 11 Apr 18 - 05:22 AM

We Have Become the Kind of People Our Parents Warned Us About. (Augustus John (1878-1961)

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Mrrzy
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 10:35 AM

Useful idiots are the ones who create the need for those caution signs, like Do not use while sleeping for a hair dryer.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Apr 18 - 10:40 AM

On a packet of roasted peanuts - Warning. May contain nuts!

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: keberoxu
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 06:15 PM

Oh, don't pay this post any mind.
I'm just too chicken to post it anyplace else.

Donuel just got the **** ripped outta him by
one of the Keyboard Warriors.
No, not on this thread. On a Keyboard Warrior thread.
There is an urgently serious subject for that thread, to which
I don't want to add anything -- that's why I don't post this there.

Who in their right mind would school Donuel in how to express himself?
Donuel is Donuel. May he never change, even when his postings give me fits.
There is nobody else here quite like him.
Certainly the Keyboard Warrior, who chided Donuel on
"a lesson you have yet to learn,"
is not nearly as philosophical, as tolerant, as humorous as Donuel.

Okay, sorry, I'll shut up now.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Apr 18 - 10:16 PM

We are the people our parents warned us about

Meanwhile, I'd like to add another term: "Useful SOB". I was on a youth trip to Russia when it was the Soviet Union. We had a group of adults as chaparones but for some reason it was obvious to me that the most senior of them was, well 'useless'. You just knew that all he could do was bluster. My high school Russian teacher, Mr. Morse, was with us, a perfectly nice man and an excellent educator, but he was large and strong and could go from zero to bastard in about 1/8th of a second. I knew if there was any trouble he'd get us out.

(There was no need, the Russians treated us pretty well, we were just spoiled Americans who didn't know what to do with black bread and acidophilus!)

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 03:43 AM

keberoxu, I like Donuel's posts because they're different, thought-provoking and he never turns nasty, unlike some.

There are far too many hurtful and insulting posts from keyboard warriors, which do nothing but upset people and escalate the animosity.
Mudcat seems to me to be a friendly and interesting place, not somewhere to vent one's bile and attack other posters with personal insults.

I haven't found the thread you refer to, but I admire you for supporting Donuel and for your evident care about us all on here.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 03:53 AM

I agree with you Eliza.
There is a group here who do not expect to be disagreed with, and react badly to anyone who does, lovely and friendly though they appear until that happens.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 04:02 AM

Exactly Keith. One can disagree and state one's opinion in a civilised manner without being downright rude and savage.

Nobody expects us all to natter away in total agreement like a bunch of old ladies at a tea party. But some of the political/social commentary threads have become a disgrace, in my view.

Like keberoxu, I feel so annoyed when many of the truly calm and likeable people on here get viciously slated merely for expressing a different view on the topic in hand. Fortunately there are several delightful and interesting folk who make visiting Mudcat a real pleasure.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 04:21 AM

I get on great with Donuel. I don't always understand everything he posts but then again I suspect he doesn't always understand me! Quite a few of us on here seem to speak a different language but Donuel never uses that difference in a malicious way.

I can't find anyone having a go at him either. Maybe keberoxu will enlighten us?

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 04:58 AM

Eliza, one can indeed state one's opinion in a civilised manner but there are those who ostensibly remain civilised while trying to undermine people with invidious hints and suggestions that they are making things up or are empty headed. Give me a bit of good, honest Anglo Saxon any day!

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 05:00 AM

I intended to use insideous rather than invidious, but either will do :-)

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Senoufou
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 05:55 AM

Well I understand your point Dave, but using 'Anglo-Saxon' words isn't considered acceptable in public (arrestable offence actually!) and often reveals a lack of adequate vocabulary.
I might use such words at home if I burn my hand on the cooker, but never when anyone is listening (except my husband, who sadly has learnt some choice words from me over the years!)

Like you I also dislike insidious (and invidious!) styles of posts, which I find patronising and rather underhand.

Surely one can state what one feels without undermining, being abusive, using bad language or insulting folk? If not, one should find another site where everyone is of the same ilk.
(I can just imagine a type of John Cleese Monty Python sketch where all the protagonists are abusing each other at full throttle and enjoying every minute of it) :)

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 06:22 AM

Surely one can state what one feels without undermining, being abusive, using bad language or insulting folk?

I have tried that many a time, Eliza, but someone usually responds in a confrontational manner. I have only recently discovered that the only response to that is to ignore them. Of course that engenders the feeling in them that they have somehow 'won' but as long as sensible people see the truth, I can live with that :-)

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 08:09 AM

We all have different abilities and disabilities to some degree.
If you choose to deal with a 'disabled' person you we find there are some things they can do exceptionally well.

If you look past some abuse from a person with an ego disorder you may find a diamond in the rough.* A dose of acceptance or forgiveness goes a long way to include wider humanity in your world.

We could call this Toxic Ego Disorder. http://www.webpsychologist.net/of-chattering-minds-toxic-emotions-and-insatiable-egos/

If you have a form of toxic ego you might not like people without it.
You might like to argue with others who have this condition.
T.E.D is a small yet powerful aspect of a person.

You don't have to convert to Buddhism to overcome this disability .
https://thoughtcatalog.com/ryan-holiday/2016/06/25-ways-to-kill-the-toxic-ego-that-will-ruin-your-life/

For example I can highly respect and like someone with toxic ego even when the one afflicted is unaware of their own condition. Ex. my friendship with Steve. We are a foil to ach other but fight for the same cause.

I have a hard enough time dealing with illusions that my own ego tries to foist on me. When I succeed in taming the ego I am more aware of unnecessary prejudice and feel more creative.

I know my own disabilities well enough to know when others become intolerant of them. There is little chance of changing others but we stand a better chance to change ourselves.






*
some rough folk call this finding a diamond in a goat's ass

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 08:10 AM

Donuel, you put the rest of us to shame.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 09:01 AM

Kindly stick to analysing yourself, Donuel, not people who you know only from this limited, two-dimensional old-fashioned forum.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Kenny B (inactive)
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 09:27 AM

Dear Donuel
"some rough folk call this finding a diamond in a goat's ass"

Should I sell my banjo and metal detector and buy a goat?

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 09:32 AM

Yes I will. Besides from my POV, most relationships here are virtual and only have a two dimensional depth, which is zero. There will continue to be cat videos, kind and funny old ladies, automatic response of 'fine' when asked how they are, a running dialog of what superior food we feed our face how smart and veneered we are, a spectrum of one liners and an hilarious remarkable silliness.

Keb I reject any notion I have an edge or am fundamentally better than others. I certainly am NOT. But there is an appealing urge for the ego to say, "Yeah I put others to shame" but only a Trump diseased ego would believe it... The best trick of ego is that it pretends that "it" is "you"

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 09:58 AM

John Updike had a very clever picture of a consuming ego when he said, "Celebrity is a mask that consumes the face".

It is said by teaching we are taught. I was taught by 12,000 therapy clients and surprisingly, the many former members of this forum now passed. I owe them a debt of gratitude for waking me up from a boring sleep.

Just as 'all fame is fleeting', so is the flame of life itself.
Get to it, getter done, just do it, do what makes you proud in 20 years or the eternal now.
My debt is paid, just don't contact the Bank.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 11:09 AM

useless vs useful idiots
Contemptible people can use useless idiots by appealing to their appalling Ego and turn them into useful idiots.
There is the less than voluntary sucking up to Trump.
There is also the deliberate strategic sucking up to Trump which is the most disgusting debasement of the soul of our nation.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Iains
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 01:59 PM

I do not think the majority that elected Trump consider themselves to be idiots of either stated variety.

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 02:19 PM

Since I started this thread....

Maybe the list of idiots needs to be broadened, with sub categories...

Today's reading of mudcat brings to mind the old fashioned blissfully ignorant and unaware;

yet easily riled up into arming themselves with pitchforks and flaming torches,
to storm seemingly sinister hilltop castles,

"Village Idiots"...

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 02:21 PM

Arrogance and self awareness seldom go hand in hand Iain. Look at Trump.

Most Trump supporters I encounter offer some excuse while declaring their support like, '...but he is doing the best he can' or 'I just wish he would lay off the twitter but...'.

I remind folks we are all crew on this ship unless we are billionaires.

The prejudiced bigots in my country will not own their racism be it overt or institutional and are not always hard core racists. They are more like hard core 'fearists' than fascists.

They are consumed by fear and are taught to shoot first and ask questions later.

Orange you glad I do not feel that way about you?

Subject: RE: BS: useful versus useless idiots...???
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 18 - 02:28 PM

Yeah just like those flaming torch village idiots. In the battle for the soul of a nation there are the passionate, the sensible and the idiots.