Harry & Meghan 13: Doing the Dance of Deniability

[Loveday]

2 minutes ago, tabitha2 said:

It’s a particularly nasty troll. Trying to defend yourself or your position is futile  as it just your twists words and meaning anyway. 

True, but I do like to know what's being said about me and/or my opinions in cases like this. Giving us the option to block said troll from seeing our posts as we can ignore theirs just levels things out, I feel. I mean, if it can't be done, I can live with it, but it would be nice if a tweak to the programming could be made, so to speak!😆

[AmazonGrace]

As long as it's a public forum a blocked user could still see all the posts if they just logged out of their account

[noseybutt]

General PSA. Security clearances are not about law breaking or decorated military service. It’s about consistency and trustworthiness and inability to be blackmailed/sell out.

The US just dealt with a head of state and his close family members who could not pass security clearances and the damage will be there for years to come. I would not wish that on any country.

[Loveday]

9 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

As long as it's a public forum a blocked user could still see all the posts if they just logged out of their account

Good point, hadn't thought about that. 🥴

So basically we have to just ignore the troll and let it suck all the enjoyment out of discussing the BRF.😏

Or should I say, try NOT to let it suck the enjoyment...

Edited January 7, 2023 by Loveday

[tabitha2]

The Church lady troll is a joy succubus indeed. 
 

 

Edited January 7, 2023 by tabitha2

[Loveday]

17 minutes ago, tabitha2 said:

The Church lady troll is a joy succubus indeed. 
 

 

Visualising it as the Church Lady will certainly help matters! 

[TeaGrannie]

I have the troll blocked however when others quote the comments I see them anyway. I definitely prefer the block feature on Facebook (my daughter-in-law may as well not exist there). 

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

The troll sucks and I hate the way the troll throws off the discussion.

Sigh.

Anyway...

Harry is messed up. 

I dont read much into the soldier/taliban kills thing. Other than- culturally we dont accept talking about it and he broke that taboo. I think we'd like to think that all soldiers are regretful about their kills but I dont think that's necessarily true. I dont think any military really encourages their soldiers to think of the enemy as fellow humans. Sort of goes against the reason for the military existing.

 

I will be curious if the English version won't be such wonky prose. But I think some quotes I read were from advance copies given to press. 

 

[noseybutt]

16 minutes ago, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

The troll sucks and I hate the way the troll throws off the discussion.

Sigh.

Anyway...

Harry is messed up. 

I dont read much into the soldier/taliban kills thing. Other than- culturally we dont accept talking about it and he broke that taboo. I think we'd like to think that all soldiers are regretful about their kills but I dont think that's necessarily true. I dont think any military really encourages their soldiers to think of the enemy as fellow humans. Sort of goes against the reason for the military existing.

 

I will be curious if the English version won't be such wonky prose. But I think some quotes I read were from advance copies given to press. 

 

Your comment about it being taboo to discuss (even though this is how the military is trained) is spot on. The dehumanizing and rationalizing that must occur in order for soldiers to kill in the moment does not translate to civilian life.

It strikes me that taboo breaking seems to be the goal throughout the book. He is no longer Royal and has no desire to play by the rules.

Which is interesting given we are living in an era where so many political taboos and norms have been broken by people in power or seeking election. 

In this instance it’s the inverse. He’s blowing it up as he walks always.

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

I think there's something to be said for burning all the bridges. Certainly BRF has not been a healthy way for anybody to be raised. And I'd think Harry would have every reason to want to expose it and being it down.

But he keeps acting like he wants to bring it down AND be invited back with apologies and familial warmth.

He must have some terrible advisors.

You can't have both Harry... which is the true intent?

 

[noseybutt]

2 minutes ago, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

I think there's something to be said for burning all the bridges. Certainly BRF has not been a healthy way for anybody to be raised. And I'd think Harry would have every reason to want to expose it and being it down.

But he keeps acting like he wants to bring it down AND be invited back with apologies and familial warmth.

He must have some terrible advisors.

You can't have both Harry... which is the true intent?

 

Yeah, I have always thought of him as a staunch royalist but this makes me wonder. 

[tabitha2]

Stronger personalities like Ann and her brood do well in Royal life while more Sensitive people like Harry don’t tend to. 

[noseybutt]

41 minutes ago, tabitha2 said:

Stronger personalities like Ann and her brood do well in Royal life while more Sensitive people like Harry don’t tend to. 

I would suggest that it’s not healthy for any of the personalities. That people like Ann do well in spite of the stresses, not because of them.

[SoSoNosy]

4 hours ago, nelliebelle1197 said:

Guys, I have a thought. There is a yucky troll in our forest. The best way to squelch a troll is to deprive it of oxygen. Don't use the reactions, don't reply to it and just put it on ignore. Sadly, @Coconut Flan and I cannot ignore anyone but please use the ignore function freely!

I have tried, and my "ignored posters" list shows her name.  But she still shows up.  I messaged Coconut Flan and she couldn't see any reason why.

[Antimony]

5 hours ago, viii said:

I guess I just don’t see the outrage over the chessboard comments. What does the average civilian assume soldiers do? They kill people and I can only imagine how heavily that weighs on them, regardless of who it is. It seems rather normal to “dehumanize” the other side, to give yourself even the slightest hint of peace. 🤷🏻‍♀️ However, I do agree with that there are some things you share only with your therapist or the people involved in the situation with you, since they will understand the most. This seems one of them. The public world did not need to know his exact number, even if it’s cathartic for him to tell it. Tell it to a therapist. 

Actually, a lot of this should have only been told to a therapist. 🤣

Normally, I'm just lurking because I'm no Royal expert but there has been a weird serendipity in the last few minutes. I was reading and exclaimed to my husband, who is currently playing some terribly complex JPRG, "Oh, I've played myself."

What had happened was I downloaded a memoir from a Korean War MASH Helicopter pilot (obvious reasons...) and forgot how...some people are. I didn't expect the book to open with fondness for the experience of shooting enemy planes in WW2 and descriptions of it as exilarating. (Especially becuase it's a Korean War MASH memoir.) And my husband said, "What did you expect in a war memoir? It's a military novel."

My response was, "It's one thing to shoot down an enemy plane in a war, and it's one thing to have to cut part of yourself away to do it. It is another thing entirely to write about it years later with no reflection on the horror of it and present it as exhilarating and nostalgic."

And then I opened up Twitter to this tweet, and well, here we are. 

I think my sentiments about the MASH Helicopter Memoir and this are...largely the same. It's possible there's more context and later reflection in the full text of Spare, but not a great first impression for the book to me. Feels like a real missed opportunity, because one the biggest criticisms of the BRF is the continued complicity with various forms of colonialism, and no modern war can be divorced from that, but it doesn't seem to be heading towards structural critique. 

Edit: Larger excerpt now available?

Edited January 8, 2023 by Antimony

[Jackie3]

7 hours ago, FluffySnowball said:

According to every account about the issue I’ve read so far, Harry compared killing at least 25 humans to removing chess pieces from a board.

You should read the actual quote. The word "joy" is never mentioned. 

[Jackie3]

1 hour ago, noseybutt said:

Your comment about it being taboo to discuss (even though this is how the military is trained) is spot on. The dehumanizing and rationalizing that must occur in order for soldiers to kill in the moment does not translate to civilian life.

 

I actually think some taboos are meant to be broken. This is a man who protect us from the 9-11 people. He has every right to talk about what it took to do so.

He was a swashbuckling hero to the British media until he dared to marry a biracial woman who wouldn't keep sweet. 

Just as he protected the world from the Taliban, he is protecting his wife and children from racism.

That's more that Wills ever did. Wills stayed at home where people bowed and curtseyed to him, and he had servants to put tooth on his toothbrush.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Jackie3

[Jackie3]

1 hour ago, tabitha2 said:

Stronger personalities like Ann and her brood do well in Royal life while more Sensitive people like Harry don’t tend to. 

LOL, Harry went to war, while Anne stayed at home with her cosplay uniforms.

She's lived a life of coddling and wealth. I wouldn't call her personality strong at all, in fact, she's never been tested.

[Jackie3]

2 hours ago, WatchingTheTireFireBurn said:

I think there's something to be said for burning all the bridges. Certainly BRF has not been a healthy way for anybody to be raised. And I'd think Harry would have every reason to want to expose it and being it down.

But he keeps acting like he wants to bring it down AND be invited back with apologies and familial warmth.

He must have some terrible advisors.

You can't have both Harry... which is the true intent?

 

I think it's natural to have mixed feelings. Those don't go away because you have good advisors.

Though since this book is already breaking records, I think their advisors are pretty good.

Most people would like to have their family's love AND be able to speak the truth. Unfortunately, in dysfunctional families, it's "tow the line or you're out." I can't blame him for wanting both, and he's far from alone.

Edited January 8, 2023 by Jackie3

[Coconut Flan]

1 hour ago, SoSoNosy said:

I have tried, and my "ignored posters" list shows her name.  But she still shows up.  I messaged Coconut Flan and she couldn't see any reason why.

Did you scroll down and click on posts?  One of the updates added check boxes.

[Jackie3]

From Spare. Context is everything.

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Jackie3

[Jackie3]

And the rest of the quote. Context is everything.

[just_ordinary]

The BRF is widely known as dysfunctional and a rather cold bunch. Nothing new there. Complicated characters, complicated family relations, an unhealthy mix of job and private life…. all long reported on (like always, just look at history books….).

It was a good move to leave this environment. I am actually surprised not more do, but I think that the cousins are quite content in their extremely low exposure/ high privilege positions. If they had more pressure we probably would have seen more people leaving. I am convinced that many of his problems stem from his upbringing. But he is an adult. A husband. A parent. He needs to take responsibility for himself. I don’t believe he is dumb as some do. 

Leaving was a good step but it seems that he was not able to take more steps at this point. The backlash the book is creating is on him. I just can’t see what he was thinking. I would have expected that the things he recalls are incidents that let to getting a deeper understanding of things or questioning things leading to developments and turns in his life. If the story of him loosing his virginity in such a way (it’s actually pretty sad and if he was a girl, an angry mob would be calling to look the paedophile predatory sex partner behind bars) would have let to him having a warped idea of intimacy or refraining or whatever something he had to overcome, it would have been relevant. But most of those little retellings are just that. No deeper meaning but just to make him look either as victim or good or both, often enough at the expense of others. It’s not a memoir it’s a payback/promoting yourself exercise. 

It’s funny, because we say the internet is forever, but I think if that would be an interview the internet would be scrapped clean by now (just like Oprah). Much harder with a real book. 

Edited January 8, 2023 by just_ordinary

[Jackie3]

More context. Just not seeing the "joy" in killing or the bragging about deaths. Sounds like a reflective, thoughtful sadness kind of vibe.

 

 

Edited January 8, 2023 by Jackie3

[Jackie3]

25 minutes ago, just_ordinary said:

If the story of him loosing his virginity in such a way (it’s actually pretty sad and if he was a girl, an angry mob would be calling to look the paedophile predatory sex partner behind bars)

I don't know about that. Andrew is not behind bars.

But the press hardly mentions Andrew, and very few are posting analysis of his mental health. Andrew doesn't seem to make anyone mad enough to write about.