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Roger Waters

He's an arse. No more relevant than my pissed mate trying to tell me what was wrong with the food industry and how I'm talking bolox. No, I'm not, this is my job, I know it well. It's not just a bit of my job, it's one of the central planks and you really are telling Elton John how to play a piano.
 
I guess we are sort of used to RW's sometimes strange behaviour. The only people he might influence are old farts like us, so nothing to worry about really.
 
TBH I think his heart is probably in the right place but, like quite a lot of men of a certain age, he's been fighting the good fight for so long that he's absolutely certain he's right about everything, everything is black and white, good against evil, and he sees no reason to listen to anyone else who challenges his worldview. With the result that he get's it spectacularly wrong. I think 'a useful idiot' is probably about right.
 
I think he just has an absolutely massive ego that gives him a huge sense of self-belief. A real asset when set to the service of producing some great albums (even if it irrevocably damaged inter-band relationships) and calling out Israeli oppression of Palestinians.

He likely saw the UN Security Council gig as attracting huge kudos to his aspirant stature of statesman, and was blinded to the foolishness of accepting Russian largesse. The real shame is this is now going to be used as a large stick with which to beat him and to attempt to discredit all the very useful things he has previously said.
 
I’m sure it would be possible to draw a fascinating Venn diagram between fringe-nutter-left and fringe-nutter-right. There looks to be considerable overlap between the likes of Roger Waters, George Galloway, Alex Jones, Nigel Farage, Steve Bannon, MTG, QAnon etc.
 
He’s another rock n roll professional suicide along with Covid conspiracy twits Van Morrison and Slow Brain. Better to keep their mouths shut and be thought a fool than provide generous confirmation.

Old Roger has taken the walk-on part of useful idiot provided by Putin’s UN team. He is of course entitled to his opinions about the US- Russian history of mutual skulduggery but not now Roger, not while your hosts are raping, looting and murdering hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in their own country. You really are a stupid, stupid old has-been.
 
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I’m sure it would be possible to draw a fascinating Venn diagram between fringe-nutter-left and fringe-nutter-right. There looks to be considerable overlap between the likes of Roger Waters, George Galloway, Alex Jones, Nigel Farage, Steve Bannon, MTG, QAnon etc.

don't need a Venn diagram, a Möbius strip will do it - far left and far right extremists will always meet around the back
 
I know quite a few men of the generation before mine (I’m 55) who behave completely rationally but have a subject that ‘sets them off’ and they become completely irrational over. Climate change is one and issues around sexuality is another. They’re all well meaning.

Cheers BB
 
I know quite a few men of the generation before mine (I’m 55) who behave completely rationally but have a subject that ‘sets them off’ and they become completely irrational over. Climate change is one and issues around sexuality is another. They’re all well meaning.

Cheers BB
It might be worth bearing in mind that they (and I am of that age group) grew up when sexual mores were very different. Male homosexuality, for one example, was immoral and illegal, and marital rape was no crime. Gender self identification wasn't even a thing! You are frequently set* into a pattern that is hard to overcome. I wonder if you will "move with the times" when it swings back, or will you continue to believe that what you grew up with is the only truth?
And before you try to lump me in with any group, I spent several years in Earls Court, lived in a gay house, shared a room with a gay man and went to gay clubs. No, I'm not gay.
* As the Jesuits famously said "Give me the child for the first seven years and I'll give you the man". Boys, obviously, I don't think they bothered with girls.
 
He's obviously on the wrong side of the argument on Russia, but I have some sympathy for his position on Israel. At the risk of reigniting old fires on here, being a vocal critic of the state of Israel, and the atrocities committed by Israelis against Palestinians, is not antisemitic. I think we'd established that. And from what that Guardian piece says, that's Waters' position.
 
I’m sure it would be possible to draw a fascinating Venn diagram between fringe-nutter-left and fringe-nutter-right. There looks to be considerable overlap between the likes of Roger Waters, George Galloway, Alex Jones, Nigel Farage, Steve Bannon, MTG, QAnon etc.
It's because fascism doesn't fit in with the traditional left/right dichotomy, and is more syncretic.

Fascism is for example collectivist (the state should control the economy*), which is not at all a typical right-wing position. There is "us and them", not defined by class (workers vs. capitalists) but something else (race in Nazi Germany, religion and nationality in Fascist Italy etc.). It also tries to resolve the class struggle, by making it irrelevant rather than by shifting power towards the working class. Since it has positioned itself as a direct competitor to the left, it can work with the right but not with the left. And since it is populist in nature, it needs easy solutions to complex problems, which democracy does not provide, so that has to go too.

So it's not very surprising that sometimes its difficult to tell them apart. However in many things like social values, the left and fascists are polar opposites.

*) Example: Trump "ordering" US companies to move production from China to the US. Under fascism the captialists would have complied or fallen out of windows.
 
It might be worth bearing in mind that they (and I am of that age group) grew up when sexual mores were very different. Male homosexuality, for one example, was immoral and illegal, and marital rape was no crime. Gender self identification wasn't even a thing! You are frequently set* into a pattern that is hard to overcome. I wonder if you will "move with the times" when it swings back, or will you continue to believe that what you grew up with is the only truth?
And before you try to lump me in with any group, I spent several years in Earls Court, lived in a gay house, shared a room with a gay man and went to gay clubs. No, I'm not gay.
* As the Jesuits famously said "Give me the child for the first seven years and I'll give you the man". Boys, obviously, I don't think they bothered with girls.

It was more observation than criticism. The world is changing quickly, I find myself asking my children to explain certain things to me. I’m hoping my mind remains open to change.

Cheers BB
 
It was more observation than criticism. The world is changing quickly, I find myself asking my children to explain certain things to me. I’m hoping my mind remains open to change.

Cheers BB
Depends on the children! My 51 year old daughter thinks that only white people can be racist.
 
It might be worth bearing in mind that they (and I am of that age group) grew up when sexual mores were very different. Male homosexuality, for one example, was immoral and illegal, and marital rape was no crime. Gender self identification wasn't even a thing!

Blimey, how old are you?! Once you get beyond the state persecution of folk like Alan Turing, i.e. the WWII generation and before, few of whom are still with us, things became exponentially more liberal. Most ‘old’ people today are the ‘flower power’ generation and the real drivers of the civil rights movement.

I was born a little later in the first half of the 1960s and therefore grew up in the ‘70s. As an electronica geek I was always aware of Wendy Carlos, my childhood and early-teen years were framed with the gender-fluidity of Bolan, Bowie, Roxy Music, Lou Reed etc etc, and today I’d make a strong case that there should be a giant statue of Sophie Wilson somewhere as she (along with Steve Furber) quite literally changed the world we all live in today.

I’m obviously a music fan. My whole political world stems from a truly obsessive interest in music and the arts. As such as a now 59 year old I’ve never questioned the idea of LGBTQ+ rights. It has always been there in my life. Images on the covers of my LPs and words I didn’t understand as a young child, but they diffused any potential for future prejudice. As such I never had anything to rebel against, I always knew which was the right side of this argument.
 


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