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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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 - 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Senoufou
Date: 08 Apr 18 - 12:57 PM

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

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: 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 :-)"]