Fascist Propaganda

 

I like Owen Bean as an actor.  He's quite good.  And for a guy with such "presence" he's been a pretty good sport about being relegated to being the villain who dies, or the hero's right-had man who dies.

All that having been said, it took obviously more than just that to make YOOtOOBE put the British TV series "Sharpe" into my feed.

And, as a result of that meta-subsiduary I tried to watch "Sharpe."

It reminded me more and more of "Master and Commander."

Go to Ian Welsh's blog for a more eloquent critique.  But the 18th-19th Century British aristocracy were a pretty capable bunch of scumbags.  Like, some accident of history made the British temporarily better at incorporating new ways to kill people and they ran with it.

But watching the first episode of "Sharpe," ... first of all, there's an Irish soldier who risks his life to defend the treasure of the army that was going to execute him.

Then there's the conversation between Sharpe and the Spanish count who sides with the French.  In my view, Napoleon could have saved himself a lot of grief (and deprived us of Goya's masterpieces about the war that actually got fought) by just forcing his will through the existing monarchy.

Apparently the opera "Carmen" was related to a lot of bleeding-heart, "woke", pinko-commie-faggots, leaving post-Napoleonic Spain for France.

The brother of the contested title of "Count" says that he's backing Spain against the old-order of Catholic superstition and royal dictatorship.

Sharpe says something stupid about not caring about anything outside of his mission and then the battle was going to resume but I couldn't bring myself to watch anymore of that dreck.

This oligarchic nightmare we are living under is the direct result of the success of the ancient British aristocracy to maintain their hold on power over the world and to also delude working class people into thinking that they're free.

Napolean did fuck up though.  And Goya's prints ARE worthwhile for showing us what we should avoid.