The Loony Left Coming For Evil Thomas the Tank Engine

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

What on earth is this woman going to do if she ever really has something in her life to worry about I don't know why I ever read anything in the Gruadian - I know it will annoy me

[Sysman]

Bothering to read the crap she cites, she may have a point about sexism and classism (as one would expect in a 1940's series)

There was political motivation for sexism and classism in the immediate post war years.

The government of the day had a couple of problems on their hands.

The blokes being demobbed had no jobs to go to because the wimmin were doing them. They'd just spent the last few years fighting for their country and would soon have been very pissed off if there weren't any jobs.

Civil unrest was a definite possibility unless the chaps got their jobs back. They'd been trained to fight and knew where all the guns were.

but suddenly in the 2nd to last paragraph that becomes "sexism, racism and classism". Not a single instance of "racism" in her descriptions.

Typical loony lefty, anything that contains any of what they disapprove of expands to include the full set.

First they pigeonhole, then they apply hatred.

[Sysman]

And kids getting knocked out by flying blackboard cleaners thrown by irate teachers

Learning to duck is a valuable lesson in life

[Sysman]

She stole this from here

Leaving out the racism nonsense that article fits in quite well with the idea of everyone getting back to work and behaving themselves in post war society.

[pjclarke]

What on earth is this woman going to do if she ever really has something in her life to worry about I don't know why I ever read anything in the Gruadian - I know it will annoy me

Hmmm, according to Shauna Wilton's theory ..

You see, on the island of Sodor where the show takes place, there is only room for really useful engines. That's not only the show's catch phrase, but also the basic summary of every episode in the series. That is, the engines are either trying to prove themselves or worrying that they aren't working hard enough (see "James and the Coaches," "Thomas, Percy and the Post Train," "Tender Engines" and many more). This totalitarian obsession with usefulness is instilled in the engines by the iron fist of Sir Topham Hatt, aka the Fat Controller, who swiftly punishes all those deemed as "useless."

In a manuscript unpublished because the writing was too poor for nine year olds, 'Thomas Shrugged', Galt the Psychopathic engine, a miraculous but unexplained non-polluting perpetual motion locomotive downs tools and forms a union of all the self-determining really useful engines, who emigrate to a neighbouring island, form a secret rail company and in a completely non-ironic move promptly go on strike to show just how useful they are....

[BlasterBates]

What on earth is this woman going to do if she ever really has something in her life to worry about I don't know why I ever read anything in the Gruadian - I know it will annoy me

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Were you being ironic BB?

[LisaContractorUmbrella]

Hmmm, according to Shauna Wilton's theory ..



In a manuscript unpublished because the writing was too poor for nine year olds, 'Thomas Shrugged', Galt the Psychopathic engine, a miraculous but unexplained non-polluting perpetual motion locomotive downs tools and forms a union of all the self-determining really useful engines, who emigrate to a neighbouring island, form a secret rail company and in a completely non-ironic move promptly go on strike to show just how useful they are....

Whereas the article you quote is almost Swiftian in its rapier like subtlety

[SpontaneousOrder]

In a manuscript unpublished because the writing was too poor for nine year olds....

the morality is corrupt and the Ubermensch are about as Uber as your basic mouth-breathing, mother-hating serial killer. (More on him later.)

Oh dear... I feel a blatant lie coming on - one which is provable as a lie by dipping into the 'Journals of Ayn Rand' and reading the source directly.

[pjclarke]

Oh dear... I feel a blatant lie coming on - one which is provable as a lie by dipping into the 'Journals of Ayn Rand' and reading the source directly.

Romancing the Stone-Cold Killer: Ayn Rand and William Hickman | Michael Prescott