The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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Dr. Medulla
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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Marky Dread wrote:
15 May 2019, 12:51pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
15 May 2019, 12:38pm
Marky Dread wrote:
15 May 2019, 11:37am
Even with the latter years of his solo career he has done little things like having his records released on the ''Attack'' and ''Island'' label. Two labels responsible for heavily promoting reggae in the U.K. Everything is calculated.
Not suggesting you're wrong here, but an alternate possibility is that he's not that clever or doesn't see the contradictions between his racism and his own interests. Or maybe that he's willing to ignore the former as long as the latter is satisfied.
Nah he is well clever and calculated. Everything he's ever done has been incredibly thought out. From sleeve artwork of The Smiths to the album titles etc etc. He says exactly what he wants and he will already have his answer pre-planned. He has had to have control over everything even down to the correct type face / no moulded plastic labels / The list is endless he is a control freak. There is no way Morrissey is too stupid to know how this racist stance will affect his audience. It's as much a test for them as anyone else. Morrissey has created his own world and he lives in a vacuum. Last of the famous international agent provocateurs.
I dunno—the old observation that incompetency is more likely than evil comes to mind. He's definitely in control of sleeve design and all that, the stuff that can be done in private and at a leisurely pace, but in public it's still possible that he's so up his own ass, drunk on the adulation of fans, that he doesn't know how to properly mask his ugliness. Narcissism is a helluva (interesting) drug.
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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Dr. Medulla wrote:
15 May 2019, 1:18pm
Marky Dread wrote:
15 May 2019, 12:51pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
15 May 2019, 12:38pm
Marky Dread wrote:
15 May 2019, 11:37am
Even with the latter years of his solo career he has done little things like having his records released on the ''Attack'' and ''Island'' label. Two labels responsible for heavily promoting reggae in the U.K. Everything is calculated.
Not suggesting you're wrong here, but an alternate possibility is that he's not that clever or doesn't see the contradictions between his racism and his own interests. Or maybe that he's willing to ignore the former as long as the latter is satisfied.
Nah he is well clever and calculated. Everything he's ever done has been incredibly thought out. From sleeve artwork of The Smiths to the album titles etc etc. He says exactly what he wants and he will already have his answer pre-planned. He has had to have control over everything even down to the correct type face / no moulded plastic labels / The list is endless he is a control freak. There is no way Morrissey is too stupid to know how this racist stance will affect his audience. It's as much a test for them as anyone else. Morrissey has created his own world and he lives in a vacuum. Last of the famous international agent provocateurs.
I dunno—the old observation that incompetency is more likely than evil comes to mind. He's definitely in control of sleeve design and all that, the stuff that can be done in private and at a leisurely pace, but in public it's still possible that he's so up his own ass, drunk on the adulation of fans, that he doesn't know how to properly mask his ugliness. Narcissism is a helluva (interesting) drug.
Morrissey incompetent no way. But hey I don't much care either way I'm bored with him and he doesn't deserve anymore of my time.
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Dr. Medulla
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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Marky Dread wrote:
15 May 2019, 1:30pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
15 May 2019, 1:18pm
Marky Dread wrote:
15 May 2019, 12:51pm
Dr. Medulla wrote:
15 May 2019, 12:38pm
Marky Dread wrote:
15 May 2019, 11:37am
Even with the latter years of his solo career he has done little things like having his records released on the ''Attack'' and ''Island'' label. Two labels responsible for heavily promoting reggae in the U.K. Everything is calculated.
Not suggesting you're wrong here, but an alternate possibility is that he's not that clever or doesn't see the contradictions between his racism and his own interests. Or maybe that he's willing to ignore the former as long as the latter is satisfied.
Nah he is well clever and calculated. Everything he's ever done has been incredibly thought out. From sleeve artwork of The Smiths to the album titles etc etc. He says exactly what he wants and he will already have his answer pre-planned. He has had to have control over everything even down to the correct type face / no moulded plastic labels / The list is endless he is a control freak. There is no way Morrissey is too stupid to know how this racist stance will affect his audience. It's as much a test for them as anyone else. Morrissey has created his own world and he lives in a vacuum. Last of the famous international agent provocateurs.
I dunno—the old observation that incompetency is more likely than evil comes to mind. He's definitely in control of sleeve design and all that, the stuff that can be done in private and at a leisurely pace, but in public it's still possible that he's so up his own ass, drunk on the adulation of fans, that he doesn't know how to properly mask his ugliness. Narcissism is a helluva (interesting) drug.
Morrissey incompetent no way. But hey I don't much care either way I'm bored with him and he doesn't deserve anymore of my time.
Ha, fair enough. Just throwing a possibility into the pot.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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Marky Dread
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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gkbill wrote:
22 May 2019, 9:15pm
Hello,

In case you missed this:

https://www.stereogum.com/2044790/spill ... bums/news/
Nice stance taken by that record store. Doubt it make any difference though. I guess if you were not to stock albums by artists who are turds your shop would still be full of crap.
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

Post by oliver »

Can I ask a dumb question?

Is Islamophobia considered racism nowadays? Because I just don't see racism (in the traditional sense) from Morrissey.
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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oliver wrote:
23 May 2019, 9:52am
Can I ask a dumb question?

Is Islamophobia considered racism nowadays? Because I just don't see racism (in the traditional sense) from Morrissey.
Yes in laymans terms. Traditional or otherwise hatred of one set of people for their class, colour or creed is racism.
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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oliver wrote:
23 May 2019, 9:52am
Can I ask a dumb question?

Is Islamophobia considered racism nowadays? Because I just don't see racism (in the traditional sense) from Morrissey.
I consider Islamophobia racism, but that's hardly all Moz expresses, for example: “You can’t help but feel that the Chinese people are a subspecies.”
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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Notions of biological racism are largely extinct now, replaced by something more culturally oriented. Europeans aren't biologically superior to Africans, as would have been asserted in the 19th and early 20th c's (or 21st c Vince Whites), but their values and culture are used by racists to justify domination and abuse. So the word racism has evolved from its strict origins to a category of bigotry involving large groups of people.
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

Post by oliver »

Biological racism is the term I was looking for rather than "traditional"

Seems like we need a more nuanced term because "racist", to me, would encompass both old (biological) and new (non-biological groups) and I see Morrissey as the latter and not the former so I have a hard time with the one size fits all definition.

I don't know, maybe I'm just in denial about Morrissey

In saying that, the context of the Chinese comment was with regards to animal rights and I saw more as clumsy than racist.
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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oliver wrote:
23 May 2019, 10:39am
Biological racism is the term I was looking for rather than "traditional"

Seems like we need a more nuanced term because "racist", to me, would encompass both old (biological) and new (non-biological groups) and I see Morrissey as the latter and not the former so I have a hard time with the one size fits all definition.

I don't know, maybe I'm just in denial about Morrissey

In saying that, the context of the Chinese comment was with regards to animal rights and I saw more as clumsy than racist.
I can't get behind the idea of Morrissey being clumsy. I've said this before but I believe everything is calculated with him. He is intelligent and knows exactly what he's saying regards the Chinese race and others. He could've simply stated that he viewed how the Chinese treat dogs as no different to how we here treat cows. But he chose a specific way to descibe the Chinese.
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"Without the common people you're nothing"

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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

Post by oliver »

Marky Dread wrote:
23 May 2019, 10:52am
I can't get behind the idea of Morrissey being clumsy. I've said this before but I believe everything is calculated with him. He is intelligent and knows exactly what he's saying regards the Chinese race and others. He could've simply stated that he viewed how the Chinese treat dogs as no different to how we here treat cows. But he chose a specific way to descibe the Chinese.
I'm not so sure. He tends to make these huge sweeping hyperbolic statements that, IMO, are not to be taken entirely seriously but when isolated in print look anything from weird to awful.
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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oliver wrote:
23 May 2019, 10:39am
Biological racism is the term I was looking for rather than "traditional"

Seems like we need a more nuanced term because "racist", to me, would encompass both old (biological) and new (non-biological groups) and I see Morrissey as the latter and not the former so I have a hard time with the one size fits all definition.
If you prefer the term bigot, that works, too.
I don't know, maybe I'm just in denial about Morrissey
I used to try to explain away his comments about non-white peoples because to me someone who built himself up as the champion of the shy outsider and animal rights just didn't fit the profile of a basic bigot. It's still odd to me. But at a certain point all those "isolated" examples became a pattern that couldn't be rationalized any other way. And now he's wholly unambiguous about his affection for far-right racist politics and ideas.
"I never doubted myself for a minute for I knew that my monkey-strong bowels were girded with strength, like the loins of a dragon ribboned with fat and the opulence of buffalo dung." - Richard Nixon, Checkers Speech, abandoned early draft

Marky Dread
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

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oliver wrote:
23 May 2019, 11:04am
Marky Dread wrote:
23 May 2019, 10:52am
I can't get behind the idea of Morrissey being clumsy. I've said this before but I believe everything is calculated with him. He is intelligent and knows exactly what he's saying regards the Chinese race and others. He could've simply stated that he viewed how the Chinese treat dogs as no different to how we here treat cows. But he chose a specific way to descibe the Chinese.
I'm not so sure. He tends to make these huge sweeping hyperbolic statements that, IMO, are not to be taken entirely seriously but when isolated in print look anything from weird to awful.
He exagerates nothing as far as I can see. It's all intentional or he could simply say something else. Once is a mistake twice is a mistake too far. There is nothing ''hyperbolic'' about wearing a ''Britain First'' badge. Where is this Britain he thinks that is worth saving?. It died about 65 years ago. He a man out of time and out of touch with reality. The world is full of crashing bores and Morrissey is king of bore mountain.
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Forces have been looting
My humanity
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The end of liberty


We're the flowers in the dustbin...
No fuchsias for you.

"Without the common people you're nothing"

Nos Sumus Una Familia

oliver
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Re: The All Smiths/Morrissey Thread

Post by oliver »

Dr. Medulla wrote:
23 May 2019, 11:08am
If you prefer the term bigot, that works, too.
Personally, I'd go with Islamophobe. I think it fits best.
I used to try to explain away his comments about non-white peoples because to me someone who built himself up as the champion of the shy outsider and animal rights just didn't fit the profile of a basic bigot. It's still odd to me. But at a certain point all those "isolated" examples became a pattern that couldn't be rationalized any other way. And now he's wholly unambiguous about his affection for far-right racist politics and ideas.
This is where I get confused. I don't see him as anti-non-white *at all*. He is very positive about US civil rights (he's been talking about James Baldwin for years and sings about Medgar Evers on his latest album) and very positive about Mexico. He talks about how much he loves Rome and Istanbul and Tel Aviv.

From what I can tell, he has taken on board everything Sam Harris and Douglas Murray have ever said about Islam (he has quoted both in the past) and run with it.
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