Comments on: Hey, Joe...

Hey, Joe...

Mayor Curley — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 15:50:06 -0800

An energy company in Ukraine displayed billboard ads featuring Joey Bananas. For some reason a lot of people object to this.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:14:30 -0800

they should put up gene kelly instead ... he loved singing in ukraine

By: rob511

rob511 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:28:24 -0800

The city of Donetsk* was named Stalino from 1924 to 1961. *Where said billboard campaign took place.

By: Dasein

Dasein — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:30:58 -0800

You know who else didn't like Stalin in advertising? Hitler.

By: Citizen Premier

Citizen Premier — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:39:07 -0800

I suspect they were put up by protesters, not one of the energy companies. Still, I don't know how people in Donetsk feel about Stalin, he may be like Abraham Lincoln to some of them.

By: Dizzy

Dizzy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:39:38 -0800

I suppose one American equivalent would be J.Danforth Quayle advertising the National Spelling Bee. Or Monica Lewinsky for Febreze.

By: UseyurBrain

UseyurBrain — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:47:33 -0800

I thought you meant the OTHER Joe Bananas.

By: Smedleyman

Smedleyman — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 16:48:11 -0800

Ukraine not weak.

By: matteo

matteo — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:00:39 -0800

actually, the big mustache look is coming back in fashion

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:05:08 -0800

Uncle Joe is the perfect demonstration of the fact that great men are not necessarily good men.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:13:05 -0800

Were they trying to be ironic or something? Like "Pay your bills or you're a communist"? The ad copy suggested they were not, but maybe the irony was lost in translation. Ukranians are a very sarcastic people, from what I understand. Uncle Joe is the perfect demonstration of the fact that great men are not necessarily good men. Um, Okay...

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:36:33 -0800

Of course the one commie Den Beste admires is Old Joe, of fucking course.

By: drjimmy11

drjimmy11 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:56:40 -0800

Maybe it's like in the U.S., where Stalin has pretty much become the "puss-out Hitler." In that, any time you hear him mentioned in a comedy context, you know they wanted to say/reference Hitler, but they pussed out. Stalin is the awful dictator it's ok to joke about. (there's also at least two locations of a restaurant called "Mao's Kitchen" here in L.A. I want to stand next to it holding a sign reading, "not all us liberals are this fucking retarded."

By: breezeway

breezeway — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:56:55 -0800

Hold on just a minute, comrades. This is not a film. This is life.

By: andythebean

andythebean — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:09:08 -0800

anyone have of a pic of the ad?

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 18:47:13 -0800

It is time/for you to stop/all of your Stalin. Of course the one commie Den Beste admires is Old Joe, of fucking course. Well, he did have a winning smile.

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:36:41 -0800

I never said I admired him. Octavian was a great man. So was Genghis Khan, and Napoleon, and Bismarck. But none of them were good men; all were cruel and ruthless. And that was the case for Stalin, too. I can recognize greatness in a man without admiring him or wanting to emulate him, and there are few men in history I'm less inclined to emulate than Uncle Joe. (Which title I was using sardonically, by the way. That was what he was called in American war propaganda during WWII.)

By: Divine_Wino

Divine_Wino — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:48:22 -0800

Just winding ya up there Steve.

By: sarcasman

sarcasman — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 19:59:12 -0800

Stalin: great man, or the greatest man?

By: Steven C. Den Beste

Steven C. Den Beste — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 20:14:01 -0800

I must confess that there is an intellectual game I sometimes play, just as a way of keeping perspective. It's "What would Stalin do?" For instance: The Americans and British in Iraq have been capturing Iranian agents who have been working with various insurgent groups and funneling money and supplies to them. At this point several hundred are being held. A few days ago Iranian military forces crossed to the Iraqi side of the Shatt al Arab and grabbed fifteen British sailors which they took back to Iranian territory. The sailors have "confessed" to being in Iranian waters and I don't really want to think about what was done to them to get those confessions. The Iranian government has threatened to put them on trial as spies. Then they offered to trade them for the Iranians we've captured. What would Stalin do? He'd ask the Iranians which of their people they wanted back, and then he'd deliver all of them to the Iranians in coffins. The reason for thinking about that is that it sets one extreme of response. The other extreme would be, "What would Gandhi do?" Our response should probably be somewhere in between, of course, but it's helpful to begin evaluating responses by considering the extreme cases.

By: davy

davy — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 22:20:23 -0800

"A few days ago Iranian military forces crossed to the Iraqi side of the Shatt al Arab and grabbed fifteen British sailors which they took back to Iranian territory." SCDB, to me the first lesson in "WWSD?" is realism: never buy into anybody's propaganda, not even your own side's. So you just failed: you accept on faith the British/U.S./"Coalition" allegation that the Brits were "grabbed" in non-Iranian waters, yet you were not there nor do you have any informants of your own on the spot. Not that Stalin would have said anything different if those were Soviet sailors "grabbed", but that I doubt he would have cared what the actual facts were so long as he could gain something from some version of something like the story. (Of course were he ruling Iran he'd've said they were "invaders" even if they were grabbed 300 miles away.) Furthermore, what makes you think the "Coalition" has NOT been continually testing Iranian defenses, including using real live "forces"? Do you really think your own Bush+Blair team is stupid enough to make bellicose noises against a country they know nothing about? (And lest anybody accuse me of "aiding and comforting an enemy of my country," my Metafilter record has even more "Islam-bashing" than "anti-semitism." Q.E.D.) And delmoi, I don't think it's a matter of "Pay your bills or you're a communist", but "Pay your bills or else you'll die a sick, starving slave-laboring convict!"

By: srboisvert

srboisvert — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 02:14:55 -0800

Stalin is a just a symbol of the old south.

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 05:25:54 -0800

What would Stalin do? wait for fdr to drop the soap

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 06:46:36 -0800

I wonder what Stalin--Time's Man of the Year in 1939 and 1942--would do about the Saudis that are supporting the Sunni insurgents, who are "by far the biggest threat to American troops in Iraq."

By: Meatbomb

Meatbomb — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 07:19:11 -0800

I must confess that there is an intellectual game I sometimes play, just as a way of keeping perspective. It's "What would Stalin do?" As an English teacher it sometimes gives me a chuckle to imagine opening the Joseph Stalin School of English. Each day at lunch break any students who didn't do their homework would be publicly executed in the courtyard. Imagine the productivity gains!

By: sklero

sklero — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 11:03:42 -0800

I'm definitely going to refer to Stalin as "Joey Bananas" sometime in the next 10 to 12 days. Thank you, Mayor Curley.