I have bags of popcorn stored up for this.
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I think that âwanting to be a polititionâ should be an instant black flag against ever being allowed to become one.
On top of that, polititions paychecks should be stripped down to that of a regular blue collar worker & they should always be legally accountable for their misrepresentations during elections.
This way, only honest people who truely want the best for everyone would do the job & all the wankers can all go find CEO jobs or be lawyers or whatever money-hungry, unscrupulous employment they fall into.
Thus ends todays rant
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To serve the people has definitely gone the way of the dodo
Edit: they are most definitely not capable of dealing with the repricussion of things like this
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Youâll find quotes all over the internet claiming Plato said âOnly those who do not seek power are fit to ruleâ. Iâve tried over the years, but Iâve never found a source where Plato actually said this. I think the quote is bogus.
The historian Lord Acton did, however, say âPower tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad menâ.
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So even if someone were chosen to rule, who did not want to rule, and therefore started out with the best of intentions, it is most likely that the power they would wield would eventually corrupt them.
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Indeed. And thatâs why democracies have checks and balances to limit the power of their leaders.
You know, those checks and balances that Trump is so feverishly hacking away.
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I canât find it now but a few days ago, as the âbig beautiful billâ passed the Senate, there was a pic of a couple of Senators in an elevator, they were older guys who should know better. They were flashing hand signs of victory.
I couldnât help but think how utterly ridiculous they looked.
How they just signed onto one of the worst decisions ever and they were partying like a couple of frat boys after too many rounds of beer pong.
The corruption has eaten their brains.
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I guess the good thing is, peopleâs eyes and digits werenât taken out by riot police so the UK still has that going for it. I hate to think how that elderly lady wouldâve faired doing the same in America 
Either way itâs alarming to see this in a week of artists being silenced. They do a bad job of teaching the rise of fascism and dictatorships in school but one thing I know for a fact is hammered home is the censoring of artists is a very big freaking sign.
Did everyone forget?
Also did not think Labour could be as bad as the Tories but I guess we know where most of their funding comes from 
Hyup the town!
Hereâs some comedic catharsis from 2009 when it all felt, impossible to ever happen again.
Considering itâs mostly the venue owners calling for this and not the festival organisers who seem genuinely devastated and hands tied, I have to think maybe selling most of the stadiums and football teams to foreign investment from the middle east wasnât the best call in hindsight. Because Israeli money is definitely throwing itâs weight around here, a lot. Over simplification from someone whose only been paying a tiny bit of attention to landslide sales/purchases in the UK so maybe Poly can set the record straight and say this is a miserable take or not 
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Ah yes, teenagers, notoriously great at looking out for the elderly and caring for those less fortunate
Well at least one of em is 22, maybe theyâll have some sense
âThinks depression isnât realâ
Oh well, prejudiced right out the gate, feck⌠Chilling stuff 
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Well that sounds a lot like DOGE employees. I would not be shocked to find out they are there to put AI in charge of everything so the departments can be downsized (and illegal immigrants can be found and run out of town)
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I doubt it. I can only offer my own, ill-informed opinion.
Regarding Palestine Action, they broke into an active RAF station, and vandalised operational aircraft. In my opinion, they should have been shot dead by military security. The fact that they were not exposes grave vulnerabilities in our defence arrangements. I also believe that anyone involved in the organisation of their activities should have been arrested and jailed for a very long time. As it was, calmer heads prevailed, and their organisation was merely banned. I think they got off very lightly indeed. If they had tried a stunt like this in many other countries (Iran, for instance), they wouldnât have even had a trial - they would just have been rounded up and executed.
Regarding artistic freedom - this is a huge question. I find it almost impossible to even summarise the problem in a small space - Iâd have to write a text book - probably several. Iâll try a few key points:
Creative artists have been around forever - theyâre as old as humaniity. There are, however, at least two kinds of art: thereâs the art that exists because the artist wants it to, and thereâs the art that the artist makes because someone else wants it to exist.
If an artist makes art for his/her own satisfaction, he is free to do so. He should not, however, expect anyone else to like it, or appreciate it, and he certainly shouldnât expect anyone else to pay for it.
If you make art for yourself, you should not expect to make a living from it.
Very occasionally, an artist will make work that appeals to others. Sometimes it will appeal so greatly that people are prepared to pay for it. In this circumstance, the artist is free to make and sell his work, and as long as it appeals to others, he (perhaps) can make a living from it. The artist should remember, however, that he has no God-given right to sell his work. Its value lies solely in its appreciation by others. As long as the artist produces what people want, they are frree to pay for it. When people no longer appreciate what the artist produces, they are free to ignore it, and not pay for it.
By this measure, I am generally opposed to public funding for the Arts. If an artist has a following, an audience, and if that audience is prepared to pay, then that artist can make a living.
If an artist does not have an audience, if no-one is prepared to pay for his work, then why should public funds be given to that person? To produce work that nobody wants?
Almost the whole of art history has functioned on the above model. From palaeolithic cave painters through medieval travelling minstrels to Medici patronage of Caravaggio and Leonardo, artists have survived by producing what their audience wanted. It is only in the last hundred years that we have seen the weird phenomenon of the publicly supported artist creating work for which there is no market.
Performers such as Kneecap and Bob Vylan were deadbeat no-hopers before they courted publicity. Nobody had ever heard of them, and they would have remained that way if they had not deliberately created controversy. Now they have an audience, and they will be dining out on the proceeds for years to come. And they may encourage people to kill other people - and they donât care, as long as they make money.
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I say because someone has an agenda to push and when it goes wrong, they want a scapegoat with a name and face that will take the heat.
They also have to be raking money into their own pockets as well.
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Well Iâm going to have to strongly disagree with a lot of that because that would be taking food out of many peopleâs mouths, including friends of mine and their children, they do a lot of good for their local communities and the ones who have an art form lucky enough to garner a following remain independent and put everything they earn back into their community.
I dunno how it is for art scenes and circles elsewhere but itâs an absolute lifeline where Iâm from.
This is why you can go into most any place in Ireland and find someone playing music to some extent.
Itâs not arts fault itâs not a viable way to make money for a living, with the way the world runs and what capitalism has done to it too, so fair play to any government that supports it. Itâs not about whose popular or who wants to see whose art, itâs about giving those who want to try the freedom to do so without fear.
If weâre talking about public artwork grants and commissions, well thatâs a political mess thatâs just as at fault as capitalism. Used to be it was a free for all that anyone could submit their idea to, now itâs all done by committee behind closed doors and usually hire some person whose done a bunch of installations in Germany and itâs all about gaining press than allowing the people to express. Who will also charge out the arse for it.
But fuck me if my government donât love them some neoliberalism, youâd swear we werenât a country run on predominantly social democratic principles or something. They still have hangover dreams of being Americas lil bro, never seen them pull back on vocalising support for Palestine so quick in all my life either, happy to roll with the tide it seems. If delivering aid to Palestine gets sanctions put on us by America and weâre worse off for it, then do it, make a stance you absolute cowards. Iâd rather live through another recession than see us be silenced by threats.
Our president is genuinely disgusted with our government rn 
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Art is very underappreciated here.
People have gotten so used to buying cheap knock off works from craft stores and mass suppliers, they just shake their heads ânoâ when they see a real piece of artwork with a fair price.
Not sure how much of any public money goes into paying for any kind of music or art here. The occasional local street fair when the city hires a few local performers to entertain. Or they decide they want a mural that reflects the history of the area to be painted on the side of an old building .
I suspect it is much different in other parts of the world.
The only way artists make any money here is to align themselves with a nearby art guild and try to become âknownâ. Most artists do not last too long.
The only other option is to market yourself and have enough art shows to begin earning commissions.
Starving artist is a very real thing here. Most must work a real job and do their art on the side.
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In England, public arts subsidies are distributed by the Arts Council for England (Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales, have their own local arrangements). Itâs fairly easy to discover what subsidies the Arts Council allocate - but itâs not the only subsidy arts bodies receive. Many arts organisations get substantial tax breaks, often amounting to many millions, but itâs very difficult to find out who is benefiting from this money, or by how much.
The Arts Council distributes an annual budget of some ÂŁ800 million of taxpayerâs money. The top recipients include The Royal Ballet (20 million), The National Theatre (16.5 million), The Royal Shakespeare Company (16 million), English National Opera (11.5 million), Sadlerâs Wells Opera (8.4 million), Birmingham Royal Ballet (8 million), Opera North (11 million), Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (3.4 million), English National Ballet (6 million).
If these organisations are not capable of supporting themselves financially, thatâs because not enough people are prepared to pay the economic cost of their productions, or their expenditure is too high. Probably both.
I am not a particular fan of either opera, ballet, or Shakesperian theatre. I certainly would not pay hundreds of pounds to attend a live performance. I appreciate that there are people who enjoy these things, and if they are prepared to pay the full economic cost of the productions, then thatâs fine - everybodyâs happy.
However, it must be recognised that appreciation of opera, ballet, and theatre, are largely upper middle-class pursuits. They tend to be followed by people in the upper income brackets.
I have some difficulty understanding why my taxpayers money should be spent subsidising the elite entertainment of people who are already considerably wealthier than me. I have even more difficulty understanding why any taxpayers money is being spent to subsidise art forms that are not sufficiently popular to support themselves.
And yes, if the subsidies were withdrawn, then many of the opera companies, ballet companies, and theatres would probably be forrced to close. The company members - singers, actors, musicians, dancers, stage hands, front of house staff, would all lose their jobs. But the jobs werenât financially viable in the first place.
Of course, you could argue that the arts should be some kind of elite job creation scheme - financed through the public purse just to protect the jobs. But governments wouldnât do that with, say, tyre fitters, or bricklayers. Why should âartistsâ be protected, when the blokes who dig holes in the road are not?
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Well now we could enter into the whole Trump takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts so the government can dictate what is and isnât shown.
Neither is a good scenario.
There should be a better way for people in general to experience these things.
Here in the US, that has been part of the function of PBS, the Public Broadcasting of these things has allowed masses who could never afford a ticket, to be able to experience the delight of opera and ballet.
However, now the government is threatening to end all support of PBS.
I grew up on PBS. The kids shows provided when I was young are the reason I could read before I started school.
PBS is where I first experienced the Queen of the Night hitting those fantastic notes while suspended 15 feet above the stage in Mozartâs, The Magic Flute.
When the public funds are for the enrichment of the common everyday folk, it is a good thing. If we lose it, it will be a very sad day and we will be much poorer.
But I do understand your reasoning on the funds funding playtime for the wealthy.
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His wounds were self inflicted. He upset Putin.
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Weâve begun getting pleas for donations after Mr. Tâs reductions in grants for the arts. Sigh. We just contributed to a theatre, but they need so much more than just buying tickets. The artists need to be above poverty level.
Itâs dark years ahead for the arts in general.
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There was a time when there were no theatres. There were bands of travelling players, who would put on shows for money, wherever they could find an audience. Gradually, entrepreneurs realised they could run theatres as a business. They could stage shows, and make a profit, and pay for the whole thing through ticket sales. And that was fine - if people wanted to pay to see theatre, they were free to do so. And if they didnât want to pay for theatre, nobody forced them to. As long as the theatres produced what people wanted, and kept their ticket prices affordable, they had a viable business.
And that, for me, is the bottom line. If you produce what people want, at a price they can afford, then you have a viable business. If people donât want to see what you produce, or if they canât (or wonât) pay your prices, then thereâs something wrong with your business model. If youâre trying to sell something people donât want to pay for, you deserve to go bust.
I believe that, with a few exceptions (Broadway shows, for instance), opera, ballet, and live theatre are the entertainment products of a bygone age. They have been superseded, and most people are not interested in them any more. Rather than slow their death by propping them up with public money, they should just be allowed to wither away.
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