plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose (1849)
39 Inch British East India Pattern BROWN BESS Musket (1797-1854)
- Chairman Mao actually did say "power comes from the muzzle of a gun" in 1927.
.. Strange how as the years roll along - the more things change .. the more they stay the same.
Shitty Australians Fighting For Toilet Paper.
In 1803 an Indian Mughal official asked "What honour is left to us - when we have to take orders from a handful of traders who have not yet learned how to wash their bottoms?"
- Unwashed "Traders" with their own improved design of musket and armed forces ...
1st Baron Clive of India used his vicious military talent to enable one of the worlds very first multi-national for-profit corporations to colonise India and hugely enrich the shareholders of the London based British East India Company. - Nothing particularly novel here - just an early example of The Greedy predating the Needy.
- The failure of an invasion attempt on England in 1588 .. that we call 'The Spanish Armada' - was the result of awful weather - Spanish naval ineptitude - and bad luck for some .. but it made a HERO out of Sir Francis Drake the mayor of Plymouth - who's activities as a pirate & slave trader promoted a reward of 10 Million dollars to be offered (in ducats) for his essential body parts - but he died of a fatally erupting bottom (dysentery) in 1596 before anyone was lucky enough to claim the reward.
- Anyway .. that naval event and further subsequent battles led to a fresh SUPPLY of many Spanish and Portuguese ocean-going vessels under a new British management .. fuelling a DEMAND from their new owners that bigger profits be taken in a deal with Elizabeth I Queen of England and Ireland - who granted these venture capitalists a charter in 1600 to rob, steal and murder all around the 'EAST INDIES' in return for Elizabeth's personal share or royalty of the plunder.
- The failure of an invasion attempt on England in 1588 .. that we call 'The Spanish Armada' - was the result of awful weather - Spanish naval ineptitude - and bad luck for some .. but it made a HERO out of Sir Francis Drake the mayor of Plymouth - who's activities as a pirate & slave trader promoted a reward of 10 Million dollars to be offered (in ducats) for his essential body parts - but he died of a fatally erupting bottom (dysentery) in 1596 before anyone was lucky enough to claim the reward.
- Anyway .. that naval event and further subsequent battles led to a fresh SUPPLY of many Spanish and Portuguese ocean-going vessels under a new British management .. fuelling a DEMAND from their new owners that bigger profits be taken in a deal with Elizabeth I Queen of England and Ireland - who granted these venture capitalists a charter in 1600 to rob, steal and murder all around the 'EAST INDIES' in return for Elizabeth's personal share or royalty of the plunder.
Elizabeth's Fashionable White Make-up 'Ceruse' of white lead
& vinegar May Have Hastened Her Death:
& vinegar May Have Hastened Her Death:
In a much later effort to restrain this corporate looting of the subcontinent .. Great Britain established the 'British Raj' & exploited Indian resources more efficiently.
I need to point-out that I'm not complaining about history - life has always been thus - and continues to be this way. The rich & powerful have to exercise their power in some way .. otherwise there is no point in grabbing at it in the first place eh.
The City of London (and 'Wall Street' too) is simply a collection of avaricious "christians' who ignore their own rule about passing through the eye of a needle while offering it to all others who form their prey. Many 'city gents' play the traditional wealth grabbing game under the guise of "being something in the City".
People don't "make money" .. that is the first lie. - People TAKE money any way that they can.
Another lie is "the free market" - as the only free thing in the market is the polluted air in the street - while commerce, fraud & labour laws are meant to control 'the resource' while ensuring safe loopholes are retained for the wealthy.
One significant way that the privileged can elevate themselves is by the padded seats of the EXECUTIVE WASHROOM - that may by it's location or restricted-access stratify the successful's donations to a higher status ..
"One week maintenance had all the bathrooms on my floor shut off. The guy told me I had to go all the way up to the top floor and use those bathrooms. (The admin floor)
It wasn't an executive bathroom as you didn't need a key to access it. But Damn! It was way nicer than the ones on my floor!! It had cushioned toilet seats, toilet paper, that when you used it - you felt like your bum was being tickled by an angel. Newspapers and a flat screen TV (with CNN playing) were in there as well!! - Every once in a while when management pisses me off, I'll go up there and take a big ol' dump in one of their crappers. It's so tempting to NOT flush the toilet after that. (sigh) but I always do."
.. The fable that 'Moorish' survivors from the Armada staggered ashore to interbreed with the Irish is wholly false as some 6,000 of them who were wrecked on that coast either perished at sea or were slaughtered on the shores of Western Ireland by Elizabeth I's English army. The term "Black Irish' is simply a British insult that helps them to feel superior to this particular grouping of servants.
I would have been around 17 y.o in 1962 when I first worked in the UK plastics industry with an immigrant workforce mostly from Pakistan. These guys cheerfully taught me every Urdu swearword and curse that I still hold dear - while the array of collected one pint glass milk bottles throughout the toilet area together with the oily footprints on the toilet seats - suggested some cultural variation.
Interestingly for many months there in that hot plastics factory I worked 12 hour shifts on a big hand-opened & closed injection moulding machine that was locked 'over-centre' against the injection pressure by swinging and pounding down on a long 'crowbar' .. this needed & exercised my physical strength to the extent that the "powder-man" would bring me every hour a pint bottle of cold water as he refilled the machine's powder hopper.
- I gratefully sucked this water into my mouth replenishing my fluid losses from piece-rate-induced heavy sweating - without once questioning the prior use of those milk bottles.
Life is Good eh.
Marty K.
I need to point-out that I'm not complaining about history - life has always been thus - and continues to be this way. The rich & powerful have to exercise their power in some way .. otherwise there is no point in grabbing at it in the first place eh.
The City of London (and 'Wall Street' too) is simply a collection of avaricious "christians' who ignore their own rule about passing through the eye of a needle while offering it to all others who form their prey. Many 'city gents' play the traditional wealth grabbing game under the guise of "being something in the City".
People don't "make money" .. that is the first lie. - People TAKE money any way that they can.
Another lie is "the free market" - as the only free thing in the market is the polluted air in the street - while commerce, fraud & labour laws are meant to control 'the resource' while ensuring safe loopholes are retained for the wealthy.
One significant way that the privileged can elevate themselves is by the padded seats of the EXECUTIVE WASHROOM - that may by it's location or restricted-access stratify the successful's donations to a higher status ..
It wasn't an executive bathroom as you didn't need a key to access it. But Damn! It was way nicer than the ones on my floor!! It had cushioned toilet seats, toilet paper, that when you used it - you felt like your bum was being tickled by an angel. Newspapers and a flat screen TV (with CNN playing) were in there as well!! - Every once in a while when management pisses me off, I'll go up there and take a big ol' dump in one of their crappers. It's so tempting to NOT flush the toilet after that. (sigh) but I always do."
.. The fable that 'Moorish' survivors from the Armada staggered ashore to interbreed with the Irish is wholly false as some 6,000 of them who were wrecked on that coast either perished at sea or were slaughtered on the shores of Western Ireland by Elizabeth I's English army. The term "Black Irish' is simply a British insult that helps them to feel superior to this particular grouping of servants.
I would have been around 17 y.o in 1962 when I first worked in the UK plastics industry with an immigrant workforce mostly from Pakistan. These guys cheerfully taught me every Urdu swearword and curse that I still hold dear - while the array of collected one pint glass milk bottles throughout the toilet area together with the oily footprints on the toilet seats - suggested some cultural variation.
Interestingly for many months there in that hot plastics factory I worked 12 hour shifts on a big hand-opened & closed injection moulding machine that was locked 'over-centre' against the injection pressure by swinging and pounding down on a long 'crowbar' .. this needed & exercised my physical strength to the extent that the "powder-man" would bring me every hour a pint bottle of cold water as he refilled the machine's powder hopper.
- I gratefully sucked this water into my mouth replenishing my fluid losses from piece-rate-induced heavy sweating - without once questioning the prior use of those milk bottles.
Life is Good eh.
Marty K.
