The Gamer's Quarter

seryogin

Oftentimes I find myself bored, so I go here and see that noboby's posted anything new and my dread increases. Thus I am creating this thread for bored people to post about whatever they feel like posting about.

I spent the last hour listening to North Korean patriotic songs (my favorites being "There Can Be No Motherland Without You and "Rings of the Revolution") while looking for pictures of Asian girls in their respective people's armies.

China

Vietnam

North Korea

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Lestrade · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:57 am Post subject:

The distracted girl in China #3 is obviously a most hated enemy of communism. She's not paying attention!

I am also bored a lot; mostly because I find myself in places and situations where I can't do what I like, and my mind wanders and becomes agitated. Work is a good example of this.

OtakupunkX · . Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 730

Is the girl in the Vietnam picture a model? She doesn't really look like a soldier.

seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 7:58 am Post subject:

Most probably.
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SuperWes · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:33 am Post subject:

The North Korean girls certainly aren't models.

-Wes
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seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:36 am Post subject:

They ain't bad.
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GSL · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 8:48 am Post subject:

The gal getting a medal pinned on her looks like an exchange student at the university here. Of course, the exchange student is Japanese, which would be a total scandal, what with the enemies of the people having infiltrated the red army of today. I wonder if they have their own "Army of One" campaigns there?

And some of those girls just make me think, "Eight? I swear, she never told me she was EIGHT!"

Either way, I have nothing but loathing for the Chinese and North Korean versions of 'communism'; it's just a lot of flogging a dead horse that history has proven will simply rot into the soil, and an excuse to ruin the lives of millions of citizens who either don't know any better or can't afford to get out from under the boot. At least the early Soviets had ideals they followed; this shit today is just red and anti-West for the sake of it.

As far as being bored goes, I'm very bored, and it's only 7:45. How's that for starting early? I've actually been up since 6:30 to finish writing a paper for class, but the brain is mushy and easily distracted on 4 hours of sleep for several nights in a row. I'm entertaining the idea of just going back to sleep--James Joyce is fascinating to read, but is arguably less so to write about. Also, the 'random' feature on my computer's media player is ridiculously broken and worthless. If I wanted to hear the same six songs over and over, I'd just queue them on repeat, you worthless piece of software.

seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:27 am Post subject:

I'm a big fan of North Korean and Chinese "communism," because it's essentially the red nationalism of the middle-late Soviet Union. Nostalgia and all. And I'm all for being anti-Western. God knows somebody needs to resent this crap, even for the wrong reasons.

Besides most Asian peoples (Russians included) have a deep antipathy towards the West, especially America. One of my students, a dude from the ROK, certainly has no great fondness for North Korea, but he loves the fact that it can act stand-offish and chauvinistic towards the US.

And, I'd hate to disappoint you, Chris, but the early Bolsheviks didn't have any ideals. All the truly compassionate ones left the party after 1905 and the ones that remained were a sort of atheistic theocratic cult.

The pathos of the Great Fatherland War turned the Bolshevik Union into the Red Empire, with Glorious Marshal Stalin as its white tuniced Emperor. It was an event that provided the Soviet people with a shared experience of the most powerful kind, a war of national liberation (a much more effective way of forming cohesion then the brutal civil war).

It served the same purpose as the Korean War for the DPRK, the Fatherland Liberation War for Vietnam, and the civil war for China.
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dessgeega · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 9:58 am Post subject:

the bolsheviks had not a drop of radicalism in them.

anyway, there are plenty of good reasons to be anti-western.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:09 am Post subject:

everybody needs someone to love.

or a boot to lick.

not sure if there's a difference when it comes to national mythologizing.

one of the many reasons why i can't wait until some democratic millionaire figurehead is elected president so all the half-informed bushitler tards can go back to sleep while evil is worked in their name. because abortion will be safe, you know, and that's so much more important than the constitution or ethical governance, cause it like only affects less than half the population at any given time and OH SHIT IT'S A FUCKING RED HERRING FOR THE COMING SUPERSTATE THANKS A LOT.

my bad. fuck you sudanese asprin factories. fuck you!

sorry, let's get back to the communism.

communism is great because:

a) everyone loves revenge

b) platonic ideals are romantic

c) 'you first' socialism is a great way to stop feeling bad about having parents who worked in offices and could buy you stuff

d) it offloads responsibility to everyone else

e) better yet that future "everyone else" is an ideal which hasn't actually formed

f) who doesn't want to machine-gun peasants?

g) everyone gets to belong to a giant club

h) it's about as likely as ethical minarchism or market anarchism to actually come about

i) it bypasses the racial landmines that dominates mainstream politics in america, allowing people who may be of the wrong race (white) to participate in a larger discourse of rage because there's always someone with more money and/or whiteness.

j) you'll get better grades in college

k) anything that denies human nature is fun to watch (collapse, from a safe distance)

l) it's religion for people who think they're above religion

m) decent design and clothing; snazzy iconography

n) just as the catholic church revels in the metaphysics of the 17th century, communism can comfortably sit ahead of the futurist retro curve with an understanding of economics that was outdated in 1880.

o) for the most part, the planks of the american socialists from the turn of the century have been implemented, with varying degrees of success or failure; collectivism is here, as it is almost everywhere, and the only question left is what kind of totalitarian flavoring the superstate will take on when it arrives. will it be a rightist, nationalist state or a leftist, communalist one? so long as it speaks to the concerns of the people who finalize the bricks of the prison of 'thy will be done,' it shall be so.

p) hopefully i'm wrong about all this. i mean, i believe private property is the cornerstone of individual rights (as opposed to some natural law or "innate human rights" argument which rely on a consensus not shared by most of the world) but i'm not so foolish as to believe that these rights cannot be enforced without some form of violence. the ability to wage violence against the state has been steadily eroded by liberals, just as the ability to wage legislative/legal violence has been beaten down by the statists of both parties.

q) 100 million dead can't be wrong. because they're dead.

seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:26 am Post subject:

That 100 Million shit always pisses me off, because it's inflated and unclear and the type of shit that I'd expect from a lesser mind then dhex's. I can pull out a similiar number for "capitalism" (if we count nazism, British imperialism, and liberalism all "capitalism")

And, dess, Lenin (the founder of the Bolshevik party) got his entire practical worldview from Sergei Nechaev's Catechis of a Revolutionary, which was radical to say the least. I'm sorry if I didn't note the sarcasm in your post. And, remember, folks, I am actually pro-Bolshevik.

Edit: Hells yeah, Mike's posting high again. You are also wrong, I shall note why later when I am not in school, with this pretty as hell Russian-speaking Korean girl looking over my shoulder.
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GSL · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:28 am Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:31 am Post subject:

i'm totally at work. i only post crazy shit when sober.

anyway, how about 80 million? or only 70 million? collectivism can dig a mighty big trench, because all hands can dig together!

also, the nazis were about as capitalistic as my balls. you'll notice their surpreme commitment to private property and free markets in their actions in...never?

collectivism can wear many boots; anti-semitism is the collectivism of the really stupid, as is blood libel of any sort. (ayn rand was actually good for something? anything?)

even at their worst, the british were a pretty lame empire, as far as empires go. the aztecs make them look like pussies, outside of maybe cromwell and/or the sepoy mutiny retaliations (blowing people strapped to cannons apart for hours on end is, shall we say, absolutely post-psychotic?)

and this is coming from someone raised in the "oh dear mary mother mother of god they died with green mouths poor bairns oh" weep weep school of irish-american labor blueshirtism-ish-ness.[/quote]
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seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:38 am Post subject:

Not quite. The British Empire is the most vile, evil abomination to ever crawl over the Earth.

The Opium Wars alone caused about as much damage to China as Hitler did to Russia. Now, think of the Opium Wars repeated in almost ever non-white country in the world.

And, hell, if people can classify Pol Pot and Kim Ill Sung as communists, I can sure as hell label Hitler a capitalist.

And you think I didn't get the Engels reference in that post now did you?
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:41 am Post subject:

i used to make that argument for the british empire myself, but naaaaaaaaah.

comparing the opium wars to hitler is like comparing the eradication (as opposed to absorption in south america) of the indigenous populations of north america to the inquisition. just not quite there.

the british empire also had the weird effect of accidentally causing good, like destroying older slave institutions or getting rid of the mughal empire in india (and trying to replace it with a retarded english version which actually helped kill the entire empire, so boffo for that chaps!)

this is awesome, btw.

edit: what engels reference? was i clever by accident?

double edit: collectivism is, very roughly speaking, a political system which values the group over the individual. that is the most evil, vile and corruptive political philosophy ever to grace the face of the earth, and encompasses everything from classical communism and cult of personality statism to italian and spanish fascism to the modern corporative/mercantilist populism of the american right. communism is merely the most famous face of this disease, if only because people do not recognize nazism and fascism as the same shit coming from a different asshole.

but as you have aptly and wittily pointed out, i am the man who cried i against the world, and may be the most deluded of them all.
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dessgeega · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 10:59 am Post subject:

seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 11:28 am Post subject:

I still say you're off about the British. They are still uber-twerps of tweedy evil, much moreso than the Nazis.

And, you certainly are correct about communism and fascism both being roughly evily collectivist (even though I am sympathetic to some aspects of collectivism). I certainly hope you aren't leading me to that good old favorite warbeat of the American not-so-very-intelligentsia about Hitler=Stalin, so America=good thing that I can't stand.

And the Engles reference I thought you were making was a quote from something or other: "Antisemitism is the socialism of fools."
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TheRumblefish · . Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 258 Location: Florida

I dont have anything to contribute to the communism/anyother"ism" discussion, so I will stay far back. Although it is very interesting to read, and has captivated my interest. I'm very bored right now. I also feel quite sleepy right now. I took my English Comp 2 final today, and breezed through it. Although I am kind of in a "Shin Megami Tensei" kind of mood right now, maybe I'll sit down and play some of it.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 12:50 pm Post subject:

"tweedy evil" is a good name for an electro ep.

seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 12:54 pm Post subject:

Well, I'm certainly not happy about it. But then I am loser.

As I bitterly explained to one of my Korean students, "If we'd won the Cold War, we'd be in Russia and I'd be teaching you Russian." Ah, wishful thinking.

Speaking of which, I really do need to get one of those Mussolini shirts for myself and my friend.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:06 pm Post subject:

hence the scarequotes on "won."

not that the state doesn't find a way to wage war without end eventually.

you can always return to go shoot at chechens, i guess. though that's obviously unnattractive for various reasons.

since the tradition of conscription was more or less broken in the u.s. it's a different playing field. (i'm not one of those who thinks it'll be revived anytime soon, short of an invasion by mexico or canada, which is about as likely as my becoming a rock star, saber rattling towards iran be damned.)
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sawtooth · . Joined: 02 Nov 2005 Posts: 419

seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:23 pm Post subject:

Shooting Chechens isn't the same as putting down uprisings in the Warsaw Pact. It's a lot less imperial and lot more desperate and pathetic (not to belittle the fine men and women cleansing the region of the heathens).

Chechnya sucks if you have any scrupples, and even if you don't it's still not that great.
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dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:30 pm Post subject:

dessgeega · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 1:40 pm Post subject:

Swimmy · . Joined: 16 Sep 2005 Posts: 990 Location: Fairfax, VA

The Communist Party.
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"Ayn Rand fans are the old school version of Xenogears fanboys."
-seryogin

OtakupunkX · . Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 730

simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

dhex, I think that would sig would work better if you could get the lapels in there.

seryogin · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 4:42 pm Post subject:

Being imperialistic kicks ass, like a ten thousand kilometer wide speed high, just ask the pre-Stalingrad Germans. We Russians continue Muslims to be heathens as well. In the motherland, you can't be down for jihad if you're not willing to be bashed on the head by a bunch of crazy drunk cossack-fascists.

Swimmy, you make every thread here a miracle.

Greatsaintlouis, you make me not hate you capitalist running dogs. In honor of your post I bought myself an CCCP shirt on the way back from school.

[dhex]it was at St. Petersburg Gifts on King's Highway[dhex].
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GSL · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:11 pm Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 5:47 pm Post subject:

dhex · Posted: Tue Apr 25, 2006 6:36 pm Post subject:

[/img]
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simplicio · . Joined: 03 May 2005 Posts: 1091

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

Somebody tell me what the actual name of the Soviet art style of the 30-50s was. I realize that I'm probably describing several visual art movements, in which case, please enumerate on all of them, if you can.

I've heard the phrase "Social Realism" used to describe this, however, I've also heard this used to describe Diego Rivera, which does not exactly inspire thoughts of red-and-yellow panels with large block cyrillic with 90-degree jawed men in helmets looking off towards the horizon.

My soon-to-be-wife's family is, almost to a man, Catholic Communists. From Texas.

I'm also going to mention Shostakovich here, because I can: Shostakovich.

seryogin · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:20 am Post subject:

I'm taking accounting classes in Brooklyn, Mike. And those are some great banners, if this here one wasn't made by the divine hands of Shaper MC, I would gladly change it for one of them (which one- I'm not sure, I reallly like all of them). Anyway, Mike, in my effort to get you on the Department of Homeland Securities to watch list (if those Islamic songs I sent you didn't already do it), you shall be receiving a large collection of North Korean mp3s in your mailbox.

The early bolshevik style can be called "futurist." The 30s and onward style is officially called "socialist realism," even though that's not entirely accurate. I remember one of the posters of the five-year plan striking me as being particularly good (it said 2+2=5; fans of Notes from the Underground take note).

Shostakovich does rock pretty hard. His work in besieged Leningrad is especially poignant.

I would post a picture of my new shirt, though I don't have a camera.
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Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

seryogin · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 1:33 am Post subject:

I much admire the Russian futurists, Mayakovsky and Khlebnikov in particular.
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friedchicken · . Joined: 16 Mar 2005 Posts: 496 Location: Port Land, OR

I have a nice thick volume of Film Posters of the Russian Avant-Garde that my wife gave me not long after we started dating. It's pretty striking stuff, too, but utterly different from the more propaganda-ish posters everyone's talking about.

EDIT: Linky linky. Out of print, but still available used from Amazon!

Incidentally, I'm not sure that I'd call any of the Soviet posters of the 30's through the 50's futurist, really. Anyone want to link to some examples? I always think of futurist work as a very narrow range of mostly Italian artists in the teens and early twenties. BUT I'VE BEEN WRONG BEFORE.

Toto · 4th Man Joined: 21 Mar 2006 Posts: 122

Also seryogin:
Can I haves some North Koream mp3s too?
I could trade you some umm...traditional Iranian music maybe? It's all I have that's a bit different.
I would comment in this thread, but I couldn't really say much of any significance.

dhex · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 7:48 am Post subject:

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Apr 26, 2006 9:01 am Post subject:

TheRumblefish · . Joined: 29 Jan 2006 Posts: 258 Location: Florida