This covers a lot of ground – Assange, Ellsberg, Skripal, Salmond, Taiwan and more. My highlight was getting to point out that China cannot “invade” Taiwan. Taiwan is Chinese and you cannot invade your own territory. Even Taiwan accepts it is part of China, it merely thinks its side of the Chinese Civil War should be running all of it.
On social media there have been very many comments on the poor sound quality. This is an interesting reflection on expectations.
I hear no more than mild distortion. A decade ago this would have been normal internet sound quality. And for those of us who used to strain to listen in Africa to shortwave transmissions of the test match commentary, or indeed to get Radio Luxembourg in Scotland before the BBC did “pop”, it is magnificent.
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The West is so terribly uneducated about China, myself included – but I am not warmongering against them.
Ask any western warmonger if they can name top 5 biggest cities, 1 chinese movie, 1 chinese musician, 1 chinese author, ask them if they can name historical evens in China just past 100 years, let alone 50 years! What is the name of China’s equivalent to the White House? China have 23 regions, ask them to name just one. Make them spell the name of the chinese president. Let them pinpoint Bejing on a map….and so on and so forth.
Thus we have warmongers that have no idea, knowledge about the nation they want to pick a fight with, or perhaps that dehumanization is the base for this senseless acitivity to begin with?
I was quite amazed to hear Sunak, in response to some alleged spying by China the other day, say the UK was about to send an _aircraft carrier_ down to the south China sea, to offer a threat to China.
Nations spy on each other as a matter of course. Our response is to threaten the whole of China with one aircraft carrier, as if that would really put the wind up them? We’re in a position to start militarily threatening China now?
Unbelievable.
The alleged chinese spying in Westminster was just political infighting, no spies, just lies.
The joke Aircraft carriers that struggle to even make it out of their home port, also don’t have sufficient vessels to provide a carrier support group let alone any real aircraft for the carrier – so it would be a USA force under the guise of the UK. The chinese must be peeing themselves.
Re. spying:
“BRITAIN’S secret communications spy base (GCHQ outpost) at Chung Hom Kok is being shut down, dismantled and moved to northern Australia (probably Shoal Bay near Darwin), from where it will continue to monitor activities in China. Three of the four massive metal dishes which have dominated the peninsula on southern Hong Kong Island, near Stanley, for more than a decade, have already been shipped out with other hi-tech intelligence-gathering equipment. (circa 1995)”
@Glenn_NL
It’s electioneering. Another story saying damned foreigners, who do they think they are, Blighty’s got lots of firepower and can teach Johnny Foreign-face a lesson any day of the week, if he starts getting ideas above his station. There are votes in that for the Tory party.
The funny thing about it is that while the western bourgeois types whinge about China’s “Great Firewall”, they themselves don’t seem to have been very good at building one, and all their children are on TikTok. Perhaps they’re jealous.
The war in Europe is another matter.
I wonder if anyone even remembers 10th December 1941, when “Prince of Wales” and “Repulse” were sunk – almost effortlessly – by land-based Japanese aircraft.
Winston Churchill seems to have had the crazy belief that the sight of British capital ships would put the wind up the Japanese. Actually the Japanese navy could have sunk them easily enough, had their air force not done so first.
The carriers are the precise equivalent, today, of battleships and battlecruisers. Slow, static, lumbering white elephant targets that could be sunk in minutes.
on that note, I think there were plans for a new “Bismarck” picture, but haven´t heard news about that for some time.
As I recollect the Prince of Wales accompanying the ill-fate Hood was in fact brand new then.
Actually the Hood was one of the few ships that was in fact sunk by another ship. Most heavy weights were taken out by planes or subs (German Navy, US Navy, Japanese Imperial Navy) . And the torpedo that got stuck and damned the Bismarck came from a plane too. So the concept was outdated by then already.
How many British citizens could name the top 5 cities in Russia, the US, or France? Is there one of those countries where even a tenth of people could name the top 5 cities in any of the other four? And one can certainly add China to the list, on either side of the verb. What you talk about is a world problem.
Nowadays people know the top Web sites instead.
Ha-Ha ;-P
You’re right.
Craig – This makes for great listening, the video is not really required for understanding the points you go through.
Makes me think that a semi-regular podcast would be a good accompaniment to this blog. Podcasts have the advantage of being available to the listener off-line (once downloaded), and could give a greater reach.
Looks like more voices pro-Big-War-in Europe
The chairman of the non-governmental non-profit organization “European Committee for NATO Enlargement” Günther Fehlinger called on the alliance to strike at Serbia.
“The Serbian war against Kosovo began in Banska I call on NATO to immediately prepare an intervention against Serbia. Bomb Belgrade right now,” he wrote on the social network X.”
https://ria.ru/20230924/serbiya-1898371491.html
Guys and gals, please promise if our goverments decided to eliminate us all in a total war, you would oppose this mad idea. Wish you all the best ever Sunday evening.
Who ordered the Banjska operation, I wonder.
“What did the president know and when did he know it?” I doubt there’s a journalist working for any major media outlet in the world who’s prepared to turn in an article in which he asks that question about President Erdogan. (Or changing the word to “king”, about Mohammed bin Salman.)
Money was paid to interests in Armenia too, in a successful move to screw that country’s alliance. And the ongoing flight of Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh is being described in pro-NATO media as if they merely decided they fancy a change of scenery.
Where’s next for a provocation? Cyprus?
Could even be London, with the army about to go on patrols that used to be cops-only.
At least if the US does bomb Belgrade again it might not dare to attack the Chinese embassy this time.
Yes Tatyana, you can be sure that many of us would oppose such a mad idea.
Fehlinger is a dangerous moron; it is not the first time he spread pure idiocy on twitter.
What can one say, everywhere there is a conflict looming there is a western connection in the forefront:
Kosovo, with its Western-backed nationalist immature hothead PM Albin Kurti, feels cocky when he knows he has the West supporting every move by him – just like Saakashvili in ’08, Zelensky today and the nationalist Western-egged-on Taiwanese.
And just like Saakashvili came to notice, when the war gets real hot, the Western support are going to wither, leaving a devasted land and casualites. For what?
…It seems that we have to add Armenia to that list:
USAID Chief Power Visits Armenia, Highlights Pashinyan’s Ticklish Position
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/usaid-chief-power-visits-armenia-highlights-pashinyans-ticklish-position-1113667619.html
No idea whether that website is a reliable source of information or not. But I’ve never understood why Kosovo doesn’t just allow its small Northern region which has an over 95% Serb population, who don’t want to be part of Kosovo, to join Serbia. Being mostly ethnic Kosovar Muslims who didn’t want to be part of Serbia was Kosovar nationalists basis for declaring independence. So how can they claim it’s right to deny the same rights to their own majority Serb region?
I tend to agree Mr McFarlane, though I admit I am not that knowledgeable about the issue
Between the KLA and the MEK, (who have a base there!?) and all the rest of the parties, it is raw geopolitical shennigans. NATO/US have their spiked thumb in the cake at Camp Bondsteel and remember Gavrilo Princip and the Black Hand gang, archetypal useful idiots if ever there are any.
Can agree completely on this. The first Prime Minister of Kosovo after independence was Hashim Thaci, a KLA leader notorious for having rivals killed. And the KLA were and are up to their necks in heroin smuggling and kidnapping women and girls as forced prostitutes. Thaci became PM partly due to strong backing from the Clinton administration.
As Putin said
Recognizing Kosovo would open the Pandora box. As we can see he was right.
This common sense move would create domino effect around the region with unpredictable consequences in a bad way.
The whole region is unstable. My issue is with western hypocrisy. Some one can while others are breaking international law.
Here is something unusual: the Home Office has requested support from the armed forces, using the MACA procedure (Military Aid to the Civil Authority), after more than 100 armed police officers in London handed in their weapons in protest after one of their comrades was charged three days ago with murdering Chris Kama, an unarmed black British man.
I wonder what they’ll do if the alleged murderer, whom they’re so upset was charged, gets found guilty.
I’m finding it hard to avoid using the word “mutiny” to describe this action by more than 100 gunslinging cops in London.
British regime media (believed to have close connections to 10 Downing Street) is quoting the MOD’s word “routine” at the same time as they then also use the word “emergency”.
One interesting question is how did those cops communicate with each other regarding their mutiny. Imagine being the MI5 officer whose job it is to ask that.
The reported number of police officers who have downed their guns in protest against one of their number being charged with murdering unarmed black British man Chris Kaba is now in excess of 300. There are only about 3000 armed cops in London.
Home secretary Suella Braverman, in a blatant act of contempt of court, has said that “[Armed police] mustn’t fear ending up in the dock for carrying out their duties. Officers risking their lives to keep us safe have my full backing & I will do everything in my power to support them.”
Nothing about I can’t comment on individual cases or matters that are sub judice. Just cops who shoot and kill black people for whatever reason shouldn’t be scared of facing negative consequences, says the government minister who’s responsible for the police.
One question is how visible will the army be now in policing London.
“Just cops who shoot and kill black people for whatever reason shouldn’t be scared of facing negative consequences, says the government minister who’s responsible for the police.”
I wonder what she thinks about the police shooting other people with brown skin, like Asians?
Amusingly, the Attorney General, Victoria Prentis – who, like Braverman, is also a barrister – has advised the media to think carefully before publishing stories about Russell Brand, as this could constitute contempt of court:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/media-advisory-notice-russell-brand
In fact, at present, it couldn’t, as Brand hasn’t even been arrested, let alone charged with any crimes. Obviously though, it’s asking too much to expect top KC barristers – Prentis, Braverman (and Starmzy – see his lockdown partying, sorry working, in Durham) – to actually understand the laws of the land. We really are living on thin gruel.
“There are only about 3,000 armed cops in London.”
Only?
I always thought Macca was the nickname of one of the former Beatles…
Is it also something else?
A balanced commentary by Vlad Vexler.
https://youtu.be/AAt2BONQ8oE?si=2nRRNoCy89cAp370
A clear eyed and unsentimental assessment of the war is needed.
But Putin is still a bad actor.
And the ultimate defeat of his regime is a desirable objective.
Balanced and clear eyed? Even Stoltenberg admits NATO expansion to Russia’s borders made war inevitable. Vexler concludes that quarter hour of forgettable waffle by labelling Putin an untrustworthy negotiator, despite knowing very well who reneged on Minsk and nixed peace talks early in the war. The gentleman is an obvious tool of western intelligence, who doubtless thought his poised delivery would make him sound deeply thoughtful and plausible.
Anthony
At least you pay Vexler the compliment of saying that his delivery is “poised”.
What evidence do you have to support your claim that he is an “obvious tool of western intelligence “?
Vexler’s personal page says he was born in USSR (I guess in Ukraine, where there are many people with the name Vexler), “before moving to the UK, where he became a British citizen as a teenager. He has been disabled since 2003. For the first two years of his illness he was unable to walk, talk or read. He has been largely housebound with limited daily function ever since.”
https://www.vladvexler.com/
With all due respect, what is his expertise in Russian or Ukrainian matters, if he moved to the UK as a child, and was disabled and housebound since? Looks like he simply produces his opinions to collect money from the viewers, to live on it.
Tatyana
Vexler’s opinions stand or fall on the basis of the validity of his arguments and the truth of his claims, like those of posters here and those of our host.
Vexler’s disability, his citizenship and his domicile are irrelevant. Surely you agree?
I find him an intelligent and informed blogger.
JK redux
You are free to consider anyone an intelligent and informed blogger. But I disagree on the rest, and especially on the comparison between Vexler and our host.
Mr. Murray, unlike Vexler, lived in Russia and observed the country and society with his own eyes. He formed his opinions as an educated adult, not a child.
Vexler, being disabled, receives his impressions from second and third hands, and forms his opinions based on information from other people. I don’t even start the argument that any blogger selectively presents information and omits facts that do not fit his line.
Mr. Murray’s opinions are based largely on his own direct experience. Vexler’s opinions are just another opinion of another guy with a camera and Internet access.
Personally, I don’t need this, I myself am no worse at collecting information and analyzing it, and I don’t need a mediator between information and my own brains. I’m much more interested in news from people who report new facts.
For example, Mr. Murray mentioned that he was in Turkey during the Russian-Ukrainian negotiations. I would really like to know in more detail what happened there.
” Looks like he simply produces his opinions to collect money from the viewers, to live on it. ”
Like any other blogger.
“Like any other blogger.”
More correctly, like any other blogger who produces copy to earn money, which is a minority of bloggers. There is also a difference between using your blog to appeal for money and producing simply in order to earn it.
Tatyana
Apparently the more anti-russian, the more credibility the source have according to westerners.
Actually that goes for any “enemy” of the west: Russia, China, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, the more absurd and hatred against these states – the more views on Youtube.
Westerners often take pride in being so rational and well-educated but time and time again they fall for all the simplest charlatans infecting their mind with bollocks about other nations of the world.
Mr/Ms. Tatyana,
Like any good American, we both know that opinions are like assholes: Everybody’s got one…
Now when you add that you can analyze information by yourself, and without other people doing it for you, then why do you read posters on this blog? None of them has any information to provide, just their own takeaways from what they read somewhere.
Also please excuse my deep ignorance. I had never heard of this Mr. Vexler before. My bad. I tried to listen to the clip linked to by JK, but shamelessly stopped after 2 minutes. Boring.
Now to give him some credit, he knows how to choose and use a microphone. Mr. Murray should use him as an instructor.
Mr Melrose I suppose?
You know full well which gender Tatyana is.
You’re asking why I read other people on this blog. Oh, this is an absolutely incredible story, Melrose!
One day I was walking and saw a bush on fire, which was burning but did not burn out. I came closer to look at this wonderful phenomenon, and a voice came from it, which said:
– Tatyana! Tatyana! Go to Mr. Murray’s blog and talk there.
I asked:
– Do you want me, a Russian, to go to the British, saying that a voice from a burning bush sent me?
And the voice answered:
– No matter what you tell them about yourself and your motives, you will still be considered a KGB agent.
Jack you are wrong. Like any good American “they” Melrose doesn’t jump to
Conclusions. Just because Tatyana is a female name, looks like a woman ( photo) declares herself as a woman has a child etc. means nothing. She is Russian not to be trusted. Obviously this is SARCASM but nowadays I better emphasize !!!!!!!
Wait, Pigeon English. What do you mean by I ‘look LIKE a woman’ in the photo?
Hmmm… I remember that a voice from a burning bush warned me “you’re going to a holy place, so take off your…(I could swear I heard “take off your boots”, but I admit that my poor knowledge of English played a cruel joke on me, maybe there it was “show off your boobs”, I’m not sure)
Tatyana
If its a joke🙂
If not, on the photo I see atractive woman.
From your previous photos I can extrapolate the size of your boobs🙂
Of course it’s a joke, Pigeon English 🙂
But be careful when involving Russians in challenges: I seriously thought about changing my avatar to a photo of boobs and with the inscription “verified woman.” 🙂
Three things kept me from such an impulsive action: 1. the moderators might consider that very contrary to the rules of the site; 2. Melrose could turn out to be a great expert on Russian reactions to challenges and pursue precisely the goal of getting naked photos; 3. My husband could suddenly find his wife’s tits exposed to the whole world, and I’m sure it wouldn’t make our marriage (by the way, the current marriage is the third for both of us) any happier.
Tatyana @ 20:25
Good we did not misunderstand each other!
I might be the one asking for more proof of your femininity not Melrose 🙂 (you remember the degenerate argument).
Wish you the best in Krasnodar and stay safe. How is grape harvest going? 🙂
It is NOT a desirable objective. The worst bad actor in the world is the United States.
Tatyana
All our posts stand or fall on the validity of their arguments and the truth of their claims.
Even mine, yours or Vexler’s.
Or even Craig’s.
Like most people Craig was surprised by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. As I was.
No one gets it right all the time…
But Vexler is an interesting and intelligent blogger, despite his disability, nationality and domicile.
JK redux
I don’t understand your logic.
Look, disability, nationality or place of residence is not a relevant criterion for judging a person’s intelligence, nor their ability to be of interest to you. But it is relevant to evaluate how much informed they are.
I am firmly convinced that a person with a disability living in the UK is unlikely to obtain information for analysis directly, but rather simply analyzes open sources.
So, once again, I personally am not interested in watching how another blogger interprets this or that information. I use my own brain for this. You are free to do what is more convenient / interesting / pleasant for you. I don’t see a subject for dispute here.
—
Your manner of communication just seemed very familiar 🙂 sorry if wrong, but have you ever used “was it dirrected at me?” question here? 🙂
Tatyana,
With regards to your prior comments commencing as follows:-
” JK redux
You are free to consider anyone an intelligent and informed blogger.”
Seems to me that there are individual observational commentaries and there are wider structural analyses which combine individual observations to deeper investigation. I share an example of the latter below:-
https://therealnews.com/silent-coup-how-capitalism-defeated-decolonization
Vexler presents no interesting arguments, insights or truths in that video, which is why you haven’t mentioned any. Anybody can check for themselves. It is just 15 minutes, although admittedly 15 you will never get back.
Anthony
I posted the link to Vlad Vexler’s YouTube channel in good faith.
In my view he is an intelligent, humane blogger.
Obviously some posters here disagree.
I recommend that people check out his channel if they want to come to their own conclusions.
all the people who have been predicting that continuing to cross red lines would lead to war are not surprised.
This thing is quite chilling, which I guess many have already read about…or not since MSM have been very sparse about covering negative portrayal of Ukraine.
So there was a standing ovation in the canadian parliament for a ukrainian “veteran” from the WW2 the other day, apparently no one had checked the history of this man, having fought…… with the nazis.
“Fury after Zelensky and Trudeau gave WW2 Nazi unit veteran a standing ovation”
https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1816304/Zelensky-Trudeau-WW2-Nazi
Today many ukrainian soldiers running around with the same SS logo on their army jacket and Ukraine even have monuments celebrating this very SS organisation! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_Monument_of_the_SS-Galicia_in_Lviv_Ukraine.jpg
…and then west goes on whining that claims of ukrainian nazi ties are just “disinformation”. Hitler most be so proud and so surprised that his ideas are rehabilitated by the same western powers that fought him.
It seems that the great Marshall Zhukov’s prediction has manifested into rabid foaming at the mouth snarling by our imposed political leaders and media daily in our Collective Waste.
“ We liberated Europe from fascism, but they will never forgive us for it.”
— Marshal Zhukov
Via 🔴 @DDGeopolitics
Where have you been, DunGroanin? Have missed your comments. Hope all is well with you.
He didn’t just fight with the Nazis. He was a member of the Waffen SS, the most murderous Nazis of all. In Ukraine the Galician Waffen SS were responsible – along with Bandera’s OUA – for the brutal genocide at Babi Yar ravine and the mass torture and slaughter of Polish women and children. There was no more depraved category of Nazi than the SS, now being hailed in 2023 by blackface Trudeau and other liberal centrists. (The very same liberal centrists we should remember who like to ostentatiously pretend they deplore antisemitism.)
I think you are confusing the Waffen-SS with the Allgemeine-SS. Whilst the record of the Waffen-SS is not free from atrocities, the majority of atrocities were committed by the Allgemeine-SS, including running the concentration camps.
I’m talking about the Galician Waffen SS. The ones liberals are celebrating in September 2023.
http://espritdecorps.ca/history-feature/whitewashing-the-ss-the-attempt-to-re-write-the-history-of-hitlers-collaborators
Bayard, today’s article on RIA has some details:
“One living and well 98-year-old Nazi, who served in the SS division ‘Galicia’. Hunka is the grandfather of his not very smart granddaughter, Teresa, who posted a photo from the reception room of the Canada PM with the caption ‘Grandfather is waiting in the reception room for Trudeau and Zelensky’. No sooner had Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau laid the blame on Speaker of Parliament Roth, than journalists discovered a photo exposing political liars…
Yaroslav Hunka was introduced as a ‘Ukrainian-Canadian World War II veteran who fought for Ukraine’s independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops at the age of 98’, and a ‘Ukrainian and Canadian hero’.
‘Galicia’, the so-called First Ukrainian Division, is notorious for brutal massacres of Jews, Poles, Russians, Belarusians, and Slovaks. In Nuremberg, the SS formations, which included ‘Galicia’, were recognized as a criminal organization. In 1945, ‘Galicia’ surrendered to the British, on Austrian territory.
They did not extradite Nazi criminals to the USSR, despite the decisions of Nuremberg; on the contrary, they decided to use them in the fight against our country. In 1947, eight thousand Ukrainian Nazis were transported to Britain, given passports and settled throughout the country. They collaborated with MI6, they were recruited as saboteurs for subversive work on the territory of the USSR, and they served in the British troops.
When ‘Nazi hunters’ began to approach ‘Galicia’ war criminals in the mid-1980s, Canada urgently passed a law according to which war criminals would not be extradited. And many Nazis moved there. However, by the beginning of the 2000s, about 1,500 participants of ‘Galicia’ remained in Britain.”
https://ria.ru/20230926/ovatsiya-1898601518.html – English translation
—
Somewhere in Canada lives Yaroslava Stetsko, relative of another Nazi war criminal. That woman continues his ideas, there’s an organization of ‘Ukrainian nationalists’ as they modestly name themselves. After the fall of the USSR she visited Ukraine to get the chance to revive her ideas there. Bandera’s grandson lives somewhere in Canada too.
—
About a year ago the Human Rights Foundation for the Fight against Repression held a press conference, which was attended by journalists included in the lists of the Ukrainian website ‘Peacemaker’ (a Ukrainian kill list, which, by the way, includes a minor girl of 13 years old and the entire world community turns a blind eye to this).
Eve Bartlett, a journalist from Canada, who is included in that kill list, reported that in the Canadian parliament there is a descendant of a Nazi collaborator who is proud of his origins, and that Canada actively supports and finances radicals, including neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
https://russian.rt.com/russia/news/1045762-fond-borby-s-repressiyami-mirotvorec – English translation
The second in command in the Canadian government is also the granddaughter of a Nazi propagandist. Thousands of Ukrainian Nazis escaped to Canada after WWII, granted admission only upon showing their SS tattoo as proof of their ideology.
Before the 2014 coup and conflict in Ukraine whenever Canada was thought of it was as a benign version of the USA. Very few knew of its unabashed love of Nazis going back generations. It’s something that is going to be very difficult to forget now when thinking of Canada.
joel
I found this interview with Steve Bandera, the grandson of that Bandera
https://republic.ru/posts/106010
“Today in Canada, where Bandera’s family moved after his murder in Munich in 1959, lives the grandson and full namesake of the most famous Ukrainian nationalist. Stepan Bandera works as a journalist and translator, takes an active part in the life of the diaspora and is interested in everything connected with the name of his grandfather.
Since childhood, I knew that our surname is very “politicized.” And one of my earliest memories relates to the murder of my grandfather. As I grew up, I heard many different versions of this assassination attempt. But from childhood he knew that he was killed for political reasons. (!) killed for political reasons, like, you know, a brave dissident. Why someone might have wished to kill that wonderful man?
We have photographs from the 50s, when Bandera’s grandfather and his family lived in Europe. On the one hand, their life was limited, because they tried to kidnap their grandfather and he had to hide. On the other hand, they had the opportunity to lead a more or less normal life – skiing, traveling, hiking. (!) had to hide, poor fellow. Must be very upset to always hide on his travels, skiing and hiking
(1991) It made sense for me to go to Ukraine to help with the campaigning before the referendum. We brought offset printing presses to Kiev, on which we printed leaflets. About 3 million were printed, I still have samples. And representatives of the Canadian diaspora – 60 people – distributed them throughout Ukraine.
If you mean the slogan link “Slava Ukraine – Glory to the Heroes!”, then yes, it was a greeting in the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, one of the leaders of which was Bandera. – Republic). As a journalist, I would not dare to say that it was Bandera who could register copyright for it. The OUN had many creative people who knew a lot about what was equivalent to branding and marketing at that time.”
Taken from us for political reasons when he still had years of skiing and fine dining ahead of him. What a disgraceful, tragic ending for the great man.
That the succouring of fascists in the UK and Canada after WWII seems strange is only because of the widely-believed myth that WWII was a war against fascism. It wasn’t. Sure, the Allies’ enemies were fascists, but, pre-war, those same allies, apart from the USSR, had no problem with fascism, the UK government fully supporting the fascist rebels in the Spanish Civil War against the elected government. What the US and UK governments had a problem with was socialism.
Lots of wounded and injured Waffen-SS recuperated by working at concentration camps. There was considerable cross-posting between SS branches and overlaps in which genocides they were involved in. W-SS were recruited into Einsatzgruppen, for example.
Interesting report to counteract the whitewashing by the Nazi apologists:
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/untold-story-of-how-canada-became-a-safe-haven-for-ukrainian-wwii-era-nazis-1113656627.html
Seems to be blocked Stevie but I have read about this elsewhere. Two nations on opposite sides of the world united by a shared love of Nazism.
Romantic, innit?
The SS, both Waffen and Allgemeine were equally guilty. The myth that the Waffen-SS were in some way “better” than Allgemeine-SS is simply that – a myth. It was produced after the war by unprosecuted war criminals like SS Generals Paul Hausser and Felix Steiner with the collaboration from members of the German government and the US, Britain and France, three of the “Big Four” but not the USSR.
This myth has produced fruit as we now see. The disgusting sight of the Canadian parliament universally applauding a man who was a part of a military organisation of mass Jew killers tells the story to Canada’s eternal shame. Canadian prisoners were massacred by the “decent” Waffen-SS.
Everyone remember the Mitchell and Webb joke “Are we the baddies?”. Yes we are the baddies – realise people, this is not a joke. Where are all these organisations who claim to fight antisemitism? Is this mass Jew killer not antisemitic enough? Unlike Jeremy Corbyn who didn’t kill harm or denigrate any Jew and according to Margerat Hodge, a Jew speaking in 2015, was a friend and protector of Jews.
“Blame Canada, it’s not even a real country anyway”
Southpark the reknowned geopolitical experts, got it right but not all the Nazi lovers in Canada and Britain. I despise Nazis and even more so their apologists, boosters, and sundry assorted scum.
What does King Charles say about this? Sunak, Starmer, Yusef?
I bet someone in Britain has already turned their brain inside out trying to come up with a story about a couple of Russian agents cleverly getting this Nazi invited to the Canadian Parliament.
Yes, like a turd that won’t flush away zelensky gets everywhere !
Fêting Zelensky has been a new low for our media, even compared with their propaganda for the covid lockdowns.
Re. lockdowns…. Who’s the ‘they’ in this CT of yours, Tom? Surely not the corporate press, virtually all of whom were desperately pushing a “Get back to work!!” message?
Tatyana, Trudeau has already implied that it was “Russian propaganda” that was at fault.
“Hitler most be so proud and so surprised that his ideas are rehabilitated by the same western powers that fought him”
Perhaps not so suprised if he knew where the money to support early facism came from.
Hitler knew Mr Conspiranoid, he knew.
“Adolf is rotten. He’s betraying all of us. He only goes around with reactionaries. His old comrades aren’t good enough for him. So he brings in these East Prussian generals … Adolf knows perfectly what I want … Not a second pot of the Kaiser’s army … Are we a revolution or aren’t we? … ”
Ernst Rohm
I often greatly admire your independence of thought and bravery Craig. But in this case it seems completely wrong to me to claim that Taiwan – in practice an independent country for almost a century now, and a democracy, the majority of whose people don’t want to be taken over by a one party state and in practice a one man dictatorship are just part of China. And claim a Chinese invasion of Taiwan wouldn’t be an invasion.
Mr McFarlane if you bothered to read the comments here, you would know all of your spurious claims are just that – spurious claims. Tom Welsh gave us a history lesson about the last century or so of Taiwanese polity, go and read it. Taiwan is no more a democracy then Nazi Canada, Britain or America
The UK and US and Taiwan are democracies. Which is why we can criticise the government here and in the vast majority of cases not face any criminal charges. I acknowledge of course there are some disgraceful exceptions. Like Craig being prosecuted for comments on his blog that he didn’t even make. And Julian Assange.
They’re deeply flawed democracies and too many of the media go back and forth between jobs in the main political parties and the major media outlets. Influence is too easily bought through election campaign donations and the revolving door between politics and big business. And the electoral systems are outdated.
But in China no one can criticise Xi Jinping without risking jail. And the only party that can stand for election is the Communist party. Any media outlet critical of one party rule or the dictator is shut down. In China independent trade unions are banned – only puppet ones controlled and staffed entirely by Communist party members are allowed.
Which is why many people in Hong Kong oppose that system and why the majority in Taiwan don’t want it imposed on them. They can elect MPs and governments of different parties with different policies, including on relations with China. Why would they want to replace that with Xi Jinping deciding everything and silencing anyone who disagrees?
Mr McFarlane, you are doing the same thing to China as has been done to Russia. Putin is Russia.and Xi is China. It is an attempt to personify Hobbe’s Leviathan, conceived originally as the abstract ultimate monster. I’m not buying it. I won’t be talked down to. Whatever is going in these two countries, it is not what you are saying. I don’t know what is going on in those countries because I have not been more than five miles away from where I write these words in ten years. Seven million people in Britain don’t have a bank account, is this not a social credit system long in existence?
You weaken your case further by mentioning Hong Kong and Taiwan. After having seen photographs of Joshua Wong meeting with a senior State Department official, I can guess what is going in Hong Kong. I have read a great deal about Chang Kai Shek and I would need to be tortured to disavow my belief that Taiwan is a CIA construct. If the USA collapsed tomorrow and was unable to service its 800 or so foreign bases, Hong Kong and Taiwan would happily join China, without so much as a nod to “democracy”.
I saw a copy of Apple Daily with the front cover showing a photo of Hong Kong being beset by swarms of locusts, with the strapline saying that the locusts were the mainland Chinese. This is the language of genocide, as demonstrated so murderously in Rwanda.
Then you live in fairy land. Putin is not Russia but he is the absolute ruler of Russia. Ditto for Xi in China. And as far as both those men are concerned they believe they embody their country – and that to challenge them is therefore treason.
And their potential successors from the ruling elites in both countries will be no different in outlook.
There are even worse possible alternatives than Putin or Xi of course. Like the Russian neo-nazis who are now a big part of the Russian rebel forces armed and trained by NATO and the Ukrainian military, including for the attack on Belgorod. And Islamist extremists in Chechnya, Dagestan etc. (Though Putin’s ally Karimov is only slightly less extreme and he and his cronies have raped and murdered plenty of Chechen women).
If you believe most people in Hong Kong or Taiwan want to replace democracy with the Chinese one party/one man rule again you’re living in fairy land with ear plugs in and your hands over your eyes.
Since the 1980s people in Taiwan can vote for different parties – including ones with a policy of closer relations with China. Unsurprisingly as Xi ramps up the threats and military shows of force around Taiwan, parties standing up for Taiwan’s independence from China won the last election.
You’re also talking as if either social justice or democracy are the choices. You can have both. Parties and voters in many western countries too often don’t prioritise social justice and equality enough since Thatcher and Reagan. And too many people are left in poverty in rich countries as a result.
But pretending that makes dictatorships and one party states (and ones in which cronies and family members of governing party officials usually make a fortune) ok and the solution is complete nonsense.
Dissidents and pro-democracy activists facing oppressive governments make alliances with other powerful governments willing to go up against theirs. And there’s nothing wrong with them doing so. The CiA has backed a lot of very bad people. Jumping from that to “anyone the US government supports must be a bad person” is nonsense though
The idea that the US could commit genocide against nuclear armed China is ridiculous. The idea that Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners either want to or could is so ludicrous it’s like claiming minnows are planning genocide against barracudas
“Then you live in fairy land. Putin is not Russia but he is the absolute ruler of Russia. Ditto for Xi in China. And as far as both those men are concerned they believe they embody their country – and that to challenge them is therefore treason.”
Better to live in fairyland than Daily Mail land, which you appear to inhabit. Why do you think that coming out with unsupported bollocks like this is going to convince anyone, apart from those like yourself who lap it up unquestioningly?
“But pretending that makes dictatorships and one party states (and ones in which cronies and family members of governing party officials usually make a fortune) ok and the solution is complete nonsense.”
Yes having cronies and family members of the governing party officials making a fortune is so unlike Britain today, isn’t it?
It is widely acknowledged amongst people who actually think about such things that the best form of government is a benevolent dictatorship, as it removes all the opportunities for corruption. We do not have the system that we have, the system that is laughingly called democracy, because it is the best form of government, we have it because it is a system that offers the greatest opportunities for the ruling classes to consolidate their hold on power whilst maximising their opportunities to enrich themselves at the public’s expense and at the same time offering a facade of democracy to allow just the sort of virtue signalling that you are indulging in. The election just after WWII was a nasty hiccup in this cosy arrangement, but those people are all dead or near death now and the old system is back up and running tickety-boo. You obviously have no idea how the Chinese alternative to this crappy system works and appear to have no interest in finding out.
Britain and the US are not and never have been democracies.
Bullshit. They are certainly very flawed democracies in multiple ways. But everyone can vote in them for multiple parties, or set up their own party, or stand as an independent candidate. Unlike China, Russia, North Korea where one man or a small cabal of senior members of one party are in power for life.
There has never been a democratically-elected British government you ignoramus.
The US is the same. Having a vote isn’t democratic unless all votes are equal….
The UK and US and Taiwan are democracies. Which is why we can criticise the government here and in the vast majority of cases not face any criminal charges. I acknowledge of course there are some disgraceful exceptions. Like Craig being prosecuted for comments on his blog that he didn’t even make. And Julian Assange.
They’re deeply flawed democracies and too many of the media go back and forth between jobs in the main political parties and the major media outlets. Influence is too easily bought through election campaign donations and the revolving door between politics and big business. And the electoral systems are outdated.
But in China no one can criticise Xi Jinping without risking jail. And the only party that can stand for election is the Communist party. Any media outlet critical of one party rule or the dictator is shut down. In China independent trade unions are banned – only puppet ones controlled and staffed entirely by Communist party members are allowed.
Which is why many people in Hong Kong oppose that system and why the majority in Taiwan don’t want it imposed on them. They can elect MPs and governments of different parties with different policies, including on relations with China. Why would they want to replace that with Xi Jinping deciding everything and silencing anyone who disagrees?
Tom Welsh is wearing rose tinted glasses such a deep red he can’t see the real world at all. He spouts slogans with no connection to reality. And his speil on Taiwan’s government is 40 years out of date. Taiwan was indeed pretty much a dictatorship -until the 1980s when there was a transition to multi-party democracy. Which is how there have been parties with very different policies from each other on China elected since.
Mr Welsh is entitled to his opinion, as are you but as I am an old fashioned type, no one is entitled to their own facts.
My opinion is Taiwan is a gangster state and the last desperate cats paw of the US “China Lobby”. It is governed in the interests of oligarchs as are USA, Britain and most other countries.
Your witterings about “democracy” are laughable
Your opinion is at least 40 years out of date and sounds a lot like recycled Chinese Communist Party propaganda then
Thanks for the heads up
Spamming the thread with nebulous verbiage is bad manners. Can you not make a reply and then wait for a response like the rest of the adults here Or are your “thoughts” so precious you can’t help yourself
Funnily enough you do this at the same time as US has publically announced it intends a war with China. Assure me there is no connection.
I hold no candle for “communists” nor “capitalists”, I am a humanist myself
You are starting to look like a radicalised bad actor. I sense an air of panic in your antics
After a very brief scan of your efforts, I detect so many logical and factual errors, I am going to make your tripe a “special project” over the next few days and expose your lies, half truths and smears for exactly what they are – lies, half truths and smears. I like it best when I get my teeth into something, you know what I mean “Mr McFarlane”
I’ll be back
Dissidents and pro-democracy activists facing oppressive governments make alliances with other powerful governments willing to go up against theirs. And there’s nothing wrong with them doing so. The CiA has backed a lot of very bad people. Jumping from that to “anyone the US government supports must be a bad person” is nonsense though.
EDIT and thanks for your last ranting reply in which you insult me at length, claim I’ve made multiple factual and logical errors but are strangely unable in your screed to specify even one of them
“The UK and US and Taiwan are democracies. Which is why we can criticise the government here and in the vast majority of cases not face any criminal charges.”
They are not democracies, they are Democracies. A democracy is where the country is ruled by the people. A Democracy is where the people get to choose those who in turn chose from out of their number those who will make up a small part of the executive that actually rules the country. Electing representatives every five years or so and having no say in between times is not ruling, however you stretch the definition of “ruling”. Nor is the ability to criticise the government and not face criminal charges a matter of the type of government, it is a matter of its nature.
“But in China no one can criticise Xi Jinping without risking jail. And the only party that can stand for election is the Communist party. Any media outlet critical of one party rule or the dictator is shut down. In China independent trade unions are banned – only puppet ones controlled and staffed entirely by Communist party members are allowed.”
Your evidence for this tirade is what? The internet where everyone tells the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
A multi-party system only brings benefits to the parties that make it up. In a multi-party system you vote for the party, in a one-party or no-party system you vote for the candidate. It is much harder to vote out a party that is no good than it is to vote out a member of the legislature. Your criticism of China is like someone criticising a rugby team for not playing to the rules of football.
Having every citizen voting on every decision made by a government is not possible with the scope of modern government (there were no comprehensive welfare states in ancient Greece, nor health and safety laws or laws limiting pollution for instance) or the scale of modern states. What you would get if you attempted that through e.g internet voting today would be pensioners and people with no job who were interested in politics (a small minority of the population) deciding things, and, worse, votes’ outcomes being random according to which people were online and which were busy with something else at the time.
But either way, the US and UK are still much closer to being democracies than China where one party and in effect one man makes all major decisions. Where one party has been in power for *74 years* and counting. And Presidents stay President till they die of old age. While here they lose either general elections or party leadership ones.
There are a dozen ways in which UK and US democracy is badly flawed or undermined including private political donations, the revolving doors between big business and politics, and voting systems that make outcomes of elections sometimes only marginally related to how people voted. But they are democracies. Ruling parties can be voted out. New parties can be formed and stand for election. People can even stand as independents with no party.
You’re trying to pretend China is a different kind of democracy. But it’s not any kind of democracy at all. It’s a dictatorship. And saying that’s just a different system doesn’t make that any less bad.
“Having every citizen voting on every decision made by a government is not possible with the scope of modern government ”
Exactly, that is why all the so-called democracies are actually oligarchies.
“What you would get if you attempted that through e.g. internet voting today would be pensioners and people with no job who were interested in politics (a small minority of the population) deciding things, and, worse, votes’ outcomes being random according to which people were online and which were busy with something else at the time.”
What you would get is what the people wanted. The fact that what the people wanted would lead to chaos, as you have pointed out, doesn’t mean that the system that we call democracy is the only sort of democracy that works, it means that no form of democracy works. Just calling the system that works, although not at all well, democracy doesn’t make it democracy.
“But either way, the US and UK are still much closer to being democracies than China where one party and in effect one man makes all major decisions. Where one party has been in power for *74 years* and counting. And Presidents stay President till they die of old age. While here they lose either general elections or party leadership ones.”
Do try to do a little research. The Chinese Communist Party is not like the Republican Party in the US or the Conservative Party in the UK. How do you think our “Mother of Parliaments” worked before the idea of political parties was invented? People voted for candidates, not parties. In those days there was some point in MPs making speeches in the House of Commons. Without a party behind him, the MP had to persuade enough of his fellow MPs to vote for the motion that he was proposing to carry it. Now it is all just so much hot air. The MPs know it, that’s why there is so much yah-booing. The result is known long before the MP gets up on his or her feet. Usually the House is virtually empty, the MPs mostly having paired off. Do you really think this is an improvement and such a great system that we should recommend it to the rest of the world? That’s before you start on the opportunities for corruption that our system offers.
“And Presidents stay President till they die of old age.”
Where do you get this crap from? The only Chairman of the CCP to die in harness was Mao Tse Tung.
“But they are democracies. Ruling parties can be voted out. New parties can be formed and stand for election. People can even stand as independents with no party.”
Ruling parties can be voted out, yes, but then they are replaced by another, almost identical party who are just as likely to ignore your concerns for the next five years as the last lot. How does that benefit anyone but the parties concerned? New parties can be formed and stand for election and get nowhere. When was the last time that a new political party took power in the UK? Yes people can stand as independents but they don’t get into power, do they? None of these “benefits” of “democracy” actually represent anything in the way of actual power to the people.
“But it’s not any kind of democracy at all. It’s a dictatorship. And saying that’s just a different system doesn’t make that any less bad.”
China is not a dictatorship for exactly the same reason that you give for it not being a democracy: the modern nation state is far too complicated for one person to rule in exactly the same way as it is too complicated for the people to rule. All modern states are oligarchies. Yes, the legislature may have an elected element to it, but the vast majority of the executive and all those with power and influence outside of Parliament, including the nominal Head of State, (referred to in the UK as “The Establishment”) are unelected. Some oligarchies have one of the oligarchs visible as the leader. China is one of these, Russia is not. The fact that Vladimir Putin has not been voted out since the 1990s (although he did step down) does not make him a dictator any more than Margaret Thatcher or Tony Blair, both of whom enjoyed long periods in the top job.
The UK and US and Taiwan are “democracies”.
FTFY.
These days, if you say you’re English, you get arrested and thrown in gaol.
;O)
As for Tom Welsh his glasses are so Rose tinted they’re solid red and he can’t see the real world at all. He naively believes that since NATO governments often do morally wrong things, any government hostile to them must have the sun shining out of its behind and be wonderful.
And he’s 40 years out of date on Taiwan’s government, which transitioned to multi-party democracy in the 1980s. Which is why it’s had elected governments which have included parties wanting closer relations with China and ones warning China off.
This is Tom Welsh’s history lesson:
Tom Welsh
September 21, 2023 at 12:23
Er, because the Japanese invaded and annexed Taiwan in 1895, holding it till 1945. Then “…the Allies, having entrusted Taiwan and the Penghu Islands to Chinese administration and military occupation, nonetheless considered them to be under Japanese sovereignty until 1952 when the Treaty of San Francisco took effect…”
Yet you say
” in practice an independent country for almost a century now,” wrong just lies
And what pray do you say to this?
” The White Terror period, the decades of martial law under Kuomintang (KMT) leader Chiang Kai-shek and his son. It began in 1947 with tens of thousands of civilians massacred for protesting against his rule, in what is now known as the 228 Incident. By the time it ended in 1987, it was estimated that as many as 140,000 people had been imprisoned and another 3,000-4,000 executed for actual or perceived opposition to the KMT.”
The Guardian
In 1947 the KMT was an army of mercenary psychokillers and heroin dealers with a global operation.
1987 was 36 years ago. And you think there have been no mass executions or purges under the Chinese Communist party??? Ever heard of the cultural revolution???
Difference being that for decades now Taiwan has been a democracy where every citizen can vote, or stand for election, or form their own party. Including parties for closer relations with China. Like the Kuomintang. Who lost the last election due to Xi’s threats against and huge military exercises around Taiwan.
And Xi is still having even Communist party officials he sees as not loyal enough to him jailed or compulsorily retired.
1947 was 76 years ago. Taiwan’s system of government has become much more democratic. China’s hasn’t. Xi Jinping has if anything taken all power into his own hands more than any other ruler of China since Mao
“Taiwan – in practice an independent country for almost a century now, ”
If it remains independent, then fine, we can all carry on as we have done for the last hundred years. No invasions necessary. If, however, it, like Ukraine before it, devolves to independence in name only, with all the major decisions being made in the US, then, yes the PRC might take action to stop that.
Yes. Because the Chinese communist party have a long history of protecting the independence of other countries. Like when they invaded Tibet, made it a province of China, banned its religion and language and flooded it with Chinese settlers. So non-imperialist! And so freedom loving that you can’t even put up a post mentioning Winnie the Pooh online in China, because some people mocked Dear leader Xi Jinping as looking like him.
You might want to think beyond the theory that since the US often does bad things, that must mean any government resisting US influence, including ultranationalist dictatorships like China, must be the good guys. There are lots of bad guys. Them not getting on with some other bad guys doesn’t make them the good guys.
And Taiwan is certainly moving closer to the US, for the very obvious reason that the Chinese government keeps making noises about invading Taiwan and doing huge military exercises right off the island. Claiming that would make a Chinese invasion justified is ridiculous. As the Jack Black song says “you can’t take the effect and make it the cause”
How many countries has the US invaded since 1945? Can’t you update this script it really is quite tiresome.
There are no “good guys” as far as I can discern.
Duncan views the myriad US military bases surrounding China, all the missiles and provocative battleship manoeuvres, as entirely normal and respectable.
Perfectly normal, respectable things being done in a normal world.
Could you imagine Duncan’s reaction if it was the other way round?
I imagine three words U Watt, “mega”, “peril” and “yellow”
For sure. And nuking far eastern cities would (again) be the responsible and proportionate course.
Exactly my point. So strange that you’re lauding Tom Welsh’s posts in which he thinks the Chinese Communist party’s one party state (and in practice one man dictatorship) is the height of civilisation.
And there is still bad and worse. You won’t find many people more critical than me of the endless war crimes, propaganda, human rights abuses, hypocrisy, and civil wars and extremists left behind in US foreign policy.
But would you rather live in a country where you can vote politicians and parties in or out of Parliament and government? And where you can criticise the government harshly without facing jail or censorship (in most cases)? E.g Taiwan since the 1980s, the US or UK? Or where if you make any serious criticism it’s always jail or death? And where the President is President for life and has absolute power? (China, Russia, North Korea etc). No wonder the majority of people in Taiwan don’t want to become part of China any more than most Hong Kongers wanted the two systems replaced with just the Chinese one.
1947 was 76 years ago. Taiwan’s system of government has become much more democratic. China’s hasn’t. Xi Jinping has if anything taken all power into his own hands more than any other ruler of China since Mao
Ok, Tibet, that’s one country, many years ago and, in that time the US has invaded or instigated revolutions in how many countries?
Off the top of my head, invasions: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Cuba, Iraq (twice), Grenada, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria.
Colour revolutions, nine, six successful, the “Arab Spring”, the reinstatement of the Shah of Iran, the removal of Imram Khan plus interventions in South American states.
“You might want to think beyond the theory that since the US often does bad things, that must mean any government resisting US influence, including ultranationalist dictatorships like China, must be the good guys.”
Conversely, if the US are the good guys, that doesn’t make any government standing up to them as the bad guys. Every country that resists US “influence” is a bad guy in the eyes of the US. Pointing out that lies about China are just that, lies, is not defending China, nor making them out to be the good guys. Lies do not suddenly become truth simply because they are said about something or somebody bad.
“And Taiwan is certainly moving closer to the US, for the very obvious reason that the Chinese government keeps making noises about invading Taiwan and doing huge military exercises right off the island. Claiming that would make a Chinese invasion justified is ridiculous.”
It is the US government that is making noises about the Chinese government invading Taiwan and it is the US government that is doing huge military exercises close to China. You appear to have forgotten that China can carry out military exercises very close to Taiwan and still be in the PRC, whereas the US carrying out exercises close to China is thousands of miles away from the USA. Why is the US even involved in this? You can see why China is involved: even if Taiwan is an independent state, it’s still right on China’s doorstep.
“you can’t take the effect and make it the cause”
which is exactly what you have done.
I never even argued the US were the good guys. In foreign policy, the US and China are equally bad. The US has just been more powerful so more free with throwing its military, economic and intelligence agency weight around.
The US is involved because it wants to maintain its global power, because countries like Taiwan have invited it in as they’re under threat from China, and because Taiwan produces most of the computer chips in the world required for multiple types of vital technologies, civilian and military. Not the most advanced ones, but the vast majority of them. If China was to annex Taiwan it would control the majority of global chip production.
Nor does Taiwan being right on China’s “doorstep” give China the right to dominate it, invade it with its military or change its system of government. Just as the US had no right to impose governments on the people of South and Central American countries in the 1980s by arming right wing militias and militaries, helping organise coups against elected governments and even sending in tens of thousands of heavily armed “military advisers” who did a lot more than advise.
The US didn’t begin the Arab Spring, which began due to the economic fall out of the global banking crisis in the Middle East. Reduced exports to the US and developed world combined with the IMF and World Bank changing the terms of lending to Middle Eastern countries led to increased unemployment and increased bread prices in the Middle East.
The Arab Spring uprisings also affected US allies like the Saudi, Kuwaiti and Qatari dictatorships as much as its enemies like Syria and Libya. Though the US certainly encouraged and armed armed rebels against the dictatorship in Syria, NATO acted as their air force in Libya; while arming the Gulf “monarchy” dictatorships allied to the US, the US, UK and France continued arming and training the militaries as they tortured, killed and jailed protesters.
As for Tibet being “many years ago” you’re talking as if the Chinese occupation, annexation, settlement and oppression in Tibet has ended. It has not. While every US invasion you mention (and they were all shameful) have ended.
“I never even argued the US were the good guys. In foreign policy, the US and China are equally bad. ”
Given that China has invaded one country since WWII and the US 10, that’s some strange form of equality.
“The US is involved because it wants to maintain its global power, because countries like Taiwan have invited it in as they’re under threat from China,”
The PRC has had since 1949 to take over Taiwan and it hasn’t done so. If you actually stopped and thought, rather than regurgitating propaganda, that should tell you something. In the meantime, the US has established a military presence right up the China’s borders and now is saying that China is threatening Taiwan. What China is doing is reacting to US sabre-rattling.
” If China was to annex Taiwan it would control the majority of global chip production.”
That’s also true of the US and what is the US doing? Scaring Taiwan into “inviting them in” so that they fall under its sphere of economic influence. Why invade when you can simply get your people into positions of influence and power? In any case, China doesn’t need Taiwan, it can produce its own chips.
“Nor does Taiwan being right on China’s “doorstep” give China the right to dominate it,”
I never said it did, but Taiwan being on China’s doorstep gives the Chinese every right to be worried by US attempts to dominate it.
“The US didn’t begin the Arab Spring, ”
The “Arab Spring” was no more a grassroots uprising of the people than the Euromaidan in Ukraine.
“As for Tibet being “many years ago” you’re talking as if the Chinese occupation, annexation, settlement and oppression in Tibet has ended. It has not. While every US invasion you mention (and they were all shameful) have ended.”
Panama or any of the many countries round the world where the US maintains military bases, where they were “invited in” but have yet to leave? Having a large armed force in a country does give you a deal of control over how that country’s ostensible rulers act.
A report in the Kyiv Post of a successful attack on the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet and the killing of its commander and many of his staff.
https://www.kyivpost.com/post/21975
Not an impartial source I know but impartial sources are hard to find.
Of course Russia could prove the report false by producing the late Admiral Sokolov at a press conference.
Along with the allegedly recently captured Bundeswehr troops?
Hello John I think it would take a very one sided dare I say bigoted point of view not to notice that the two items of “news” that you refer to are pieces of propaganda The ukranian sourced, true or false, intended to prop up support after a not very successful Summer offensive.The Russian piece ,again true or false, is more ominous in that it readies the Russian population for a war with Germany and all that implies. That is against the background of a German government deciding wether or not to send the tauros weapon system, with a 500km range, to ukraine, a significant escalation.
And to think that all of this carnage and danger could have been avoided if Minsk2 had been adhered to.
J Arther Rank
I think it is important to distinguish between the source of a claimed development in the war and the truth of that claim.
If the claim on Russian sites that Bundeswehr troops were captured in Ukraine by Russian invaders that is a significant development.
And of course if a successful attack on the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet has taken place and its commander and many of his staff have been killed that is also significant.
The Bundeswehr claim can easily be verified by the captured men being brought out in public by the Russians. As far as I know, this hasn’t happened?
The partial destruction of the HQ of the Black Sea Fleet has been supported by video evidence but needs confirmation.
And of course the claims by Ukrainian outlets that the Fleet commander and many of his staff have been killed can easily be refuted if the Russian authorities produce the late Fleet commander in public.
The fact that they haven’t done so speaks for itself, no?
J Arther Rank
Indeed, many westerners swallow all kinds of ridiculous claims, ‘Ukraine said this Ukraine said that’, well of course, their botched “counter offensive” failed so now they are eager to claim success for the naive westerners.
But just because Ukraine claim they killed this or that many do not necessarily mean that Ukraine is speaking the truth. Even so, I do not see any merit for Ukraine to boast about killing russians, because this will just escalate Russian response, which is far more powerful.
In the end the ukraine-supporters are the reason why ukrainians are being killed right now. They are the ones that egg the ukrainians, in in their unwinnable crusade against russians, not because they feel any empathy as such but just because they hate not only Russia, but russians.
JD Redux
That is the difference, Ukraine and its supporters are focused on optics, Russia on the other hand seems more focused on the actual war.
3 examples in past weeks: last week Ukraine and the West reported prime-time on the aftermath of a strike on a ukrainian marketplace – and claimed it was Russia that was responsible. Some days went by and it turned out it was Ukraine itself that had struck the site.
Another example: A couple of days ago there was a claim that Ukraine have broken through multiple defense lines. 1 day went by and even Ukraine admitted that the gains were minuscule.
Third example is the Zelensky-Waffen SS-Canada scandal: how much did the MSM report on it? Close to nothing. Why? Because the West/Ukraine is solely based on the optics.
And again why would killing this or that many Russians be a benefit for Ukraine? You think Russia will somehow cry uncle? That is not how it works.
Obviously it is not alleged Russian influence you should worry about but you should be sceptical of every claim Ukraine is making. Apparently you do not demand they should show evidence for every claim they make; go figure why they are unable to do that.
“And of course the claims by Ukrainian outlets that the Fleet commander and many of his staff have been killed can easily be refuted if the Russian authorities produce the late Fleet commander in public.
“The fact that they haven’t done so speaks for itself, no?”
It does in a way, but not in the way you think. The Russians couldn’t care less about Western public opinion – they know we Western civilians are systematically lied to, so it’s understood that we believe things that aren’t so. As rather neatly expressed in this cartoon:
https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/image-1.jpeg
The fleet commander and his staff have important things to do, so they won’t be wasting their time trying to prove their existence to a bunch of people who really don’t count.
Western public opinion has no practical effect whatsoever. Our votes are meaningless, and our armed forces can bark but had better not bite if they know what’s good for them. Not that we civilians have any control or even influence over what “our” armed forces do anyway.
This cartoon more or less sums up how the Russians feel about our countries and the behaviour of our governments:
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/olegmakarenko.ru/12791732/2184833/2184833_original.jpg
Tom Welsh
A cultural rationale for the lack of evidence for Russian denials of damage to the BS Fleet HQ and the death of the Fleet Commander?
The Russian State spends a lot of time and money trying to influence Western opinion despite what you say is their indifference to it.
Occam’s Razor suggests that Russian failure to produce the supposedly captured Bundeswehr troops and failure to show the late Fleet Commander (for example) inspecting damage to the Fleet HQ has a simpler explanation.
JKRedux
“The Russian State spends a lot of time and money trying to influence Western opinion despite what you say is their indifference to it.”
Oh really, does it? I can’t say I’ve noticed much interest at all.
As suspected the story IS complete BS.
“Russian sources say that no one was in the very exposed building when the Ukrainian missiles hit. The real headquarter is underground in an unknown place.”
“Today there was an expanded Board meeting of the Russian Defense Ministry in Moscow (machine translation):
…
The commander of the Black Sea fleet, Adm. Viktor Sokolov, took part in the briefing via a live TV link.”
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/ukrainian-whoppers.html#more
“The Russian State spends a lot of time and money trying to influence Western opinion despite what you say is their indifference to it.”
Your source for this assertion wouldn’t be the very governments whose citizens the Russians are spending time and money trying to influence, would it?
Three more of my favourite cartoons that speak volumes about the death and destruction spreading throughout the world, who is causing it, and why:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WCMtHOtPXkw/ViK0KA7c4VI/AAAAAAAABlE/38hYC833eG8/s640/CRgq-gcUkAEeq38.png
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-q0tG_wu6Qms/VjFdZOG9r5I/AAAAAAAAB9g/y-9RGVxlh_0/s1600/1966863_601587536594463_1177965932_n.png
https://russia-insider.com/sites/insider/files/styles/1200xauto/public/1975882_Page_.jpg?itok=ae9gWVxf
Tom Welsh no 2 is a real zinger. I am always amazed at how much can be said with a simple drawing. I guess it is an art form with unique properties.
you realize he was at a press conference, yes? looked very well for a “dead” man.
The Russians haven’t invaded Ukraine, they have intervened in the civil war that began in 2014 after the second US-Ukronazi coup d’etat.
I’m pretty sure they’ve done both. Also please explain how it can be, if they’ve “not invaded” that they’ve already said they’re annexing all the territory they occupied to become part of Russia? (not that they can hold onto all of it).
I’m all for a compromise peace deal – e.g let Russia keep Crimea so it keeps its main naval base at Sebastopol, and the minority of the Donbas still held by Russian backed Ukrainian rebels on 21st February 2022. Ukraine has to formally cede these to Russia. But Russia has to withdraw from all other territory which it occupied since 22nd February 2022 and recognise it as Ukrainian territory, as well as recognising the elected Ukrainian government as legitimate. Anyone wishing to leave Crimea/ separatist Donbas for Ukraine must be allowed to do so before the agreeement. And anyone wishing to leave Ukraine for Russia ditto.
But pretending Russia hasn’t invaded, occupied and annexed Ukrainian territory is just false. And while the democratic credentials of the 2014 Maidan revolution are dubious, it was a revolution, not a coup. And there have been multiple elections in Ukraine since and changes of President and parties in power.
Having the morally dieseased monster, Nuland, crow about spending 5 billion so she can pick the cabinet is now a revolution?
So sadistically burning people alive and cheering as they jump from high windows is now a revolution? How would the US react if, as people jumped to their deaths to escape the flames in the Twin Towers, some other people were found to be celebrating within sight of the stricken buildings, and even dancing?
What does universal applause in Nazi Canada’s parliament for a Ukrainian MASS JEW AND POLE KILLER tell us, when it is met with complete silence by US,Britain, Israel et al and celebrated by Ukraine?
Ukraine’s current leader was elected on a peace platform, yet no attempt to implement the Minsk agreement was made. What does this tell us?
All of this tells me your moral compass needs a revolution
They exercised the right to protect the Donbas loyalists, same as they rescued the Syrians at the request of the Syrian government….Simples
Thanks Tom for the comics which made my morning. And thanks to Tatyana for reminding us of the now widepread support in the west of Bandera’s murderous regime under the OUN.
Poland’s Galicia was systematically devastated and 300,000 women and children were killed by those now hiding behind Trudeau’s pathetic stance.
His country’s past is littered with the hidden murder of hundreds if not thousands of indigenous Indians who were forced into institutionalised/religious settings and mysteriously died.
It does not always take a Nazi to honour the Waffen SS, but he is harboring thousands of war criminals in his country, people who for years egged on the US and Canada to infiltrate and groom Ukraine’s existing population, a trickle charge that kept hatred for Russia alive by worshipping a murderous bunch of Nazis.
They were taken in by the waffen SS who were only to eager to use the long standing anti-semitism in Ukraine for their own murderous aims.
Bandera’s grave, in Munich of all places, should be removed and his bones be turned to fertiliser for the flowers in the cemetery. It would be the most positive achievement of his existence.
If you asked Justin what he thinks the world would look like today if his side had prevailed on the eastern front in WW2 he’d say, “A world safe for blackface!”
Ze, did he comment on this situation? Any news?
—
People have an ineradicable desire to appear “valuable” in the eyes of others. Something similar to the need for unconditional love. The need to feel “worthy” without merit, without effort, simply by the fact of existence.
This gives rise to quite large-scale ideological movements that send to the rest of society (to put it simply) messages such as “we are valuable because we are women”, or “we are special because we are gay”, or “we are better than everyone else because we are the white race”, or “ we are exceptional because we are Americans,” etc.
There are many who want to analyze such messages, find arguments “pro”, allow this to influence the actions and even the policies of entire states, including starting a war. As was the case with Nazism and Hitler.
But it should be obvious to the average person that being a woman/gay/white/American absolutely does not make someone any more or less “valuable.” This is simply illogical and downright stupid.
But unfortunately, it’s in human nature, and secretly everyone compares themselves with others, and evaluates if they got a lucky ticket at birth, and what maximum benefit can be extracted from it.
Unhappy with their tickets start looking around in search of who is stopping them from finally getting what is ‘rightfully theirs’. And, if we speak of nations, Hitler blamed the Jews for preventing the Germans from prospering. Ukrainians accuse Russians of exactly the same.
—
I’ll tell you a joke about people who don’t know how to connect cause and effect. This joke was published by Medvedev, it involves two Finnish guys:
– Pekka, why did Finland join NATO?
– But Matti, the Russians are threatening us.
– Why are the Russians threatening us, Pekka?
– Matti, because we are joining NATO.
Well, for complete context, in the Finnish language doubled sounds, as in the Baltic languages, for the Russian ear always give the impression of slow and forcefully pronounced speech. This produces a certain effect, as if a person with mental disabilities is speaking, I think the word ‘slowpoke’ is correct here.
Indeed. There is also a Finnish-related joke doing the rounds over here. It’s that their recent PM Sanna Marin — who pushed for NATO membership because war criminal Putin brutally invaded another state — is quitting Finnish politics .. to join the Tony Blair Institute. (The Guardian of course sees nothing funny about it.)
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/07/sanna-marin-finland-prime-minister-tony-blair-institute?CMP=share_btn_tw
That is the difference between Africa and East European corruption IMHO.
We don’t trust each other and want money up front in brown envelopes. You Westerns trust that reward will come sooner or later if you show leadership etc… Of course NGOs and think tanks and others are going for the best people and are willing to pay. I nearly forgot the Speech Deals. Self-promoting bastards.
“We’re all doomed because the Dancing Queen can’t lay off the coke”
joel, i saw this written on a virtual subway wall (or was it a virtual tenement hall?) around the time Marin had her own squalid, political Calvary. The words of a virtual prophet or just the whispered sounds of silence?
I think it was in reference to Finland joining NATO.
Looks like this Finnish druid has found her sacred oak. She’ll march in lockstep with Blair’s foul nest of corruption, no doubt… I bet the salary buys a whole lot of ker-Ching and still some left over to shop at Harvey Nichols.
“his bones be turned to fertiliser for the flowers in the cemetery”
“From my rotting body, flowers shall grow and I am in them, and that is eternity.”
― Edvard Munch
And eternity is the best place for the genocidal bastard. I hope his misanthropic, woebegotten ideology follows him shortly to that marvellous place.
JK redux
The admiral whom you described as ‘late’ looks like pretty alive.
“Black Sea Fleet commander Sokolov appeared at a meeting of the Ministry of Defense after rumors of his death”
there’s video there, you may have a look
https://ria.ru/20230926/chf-1898707760.html
Thanks Tatyana.
Was that Sokolov at the end of the video 0.58 secs? Is that a pillow behind him?
Now, about the captured Bundeswehr troops?
I have no idea is that Sokolov or not, I supposed it’s you who follow the story closely, so must know the man’s face. You posted a link to some Ukrainian source, is there a photo of ‘late’ Sokolov there?
No news on Bundeswehr troops so far.
May I ask in my turn – any reaction from Scholz or Baerbock on this?
And, any statement from Ze on greeting the Nazi in Canadian Parliament?
No, it isn’t a pillow behind him, it’s a chair back.
What is a white pillow code word for?
Pretend you are alive otherwise we will suffocate you or I am dead & don’t trust the bastards or help someone in the team.
JKredux was of course trying to suggest that Sokolov was injured in the attack, and perhaps on his death bed, thus to justify his claims.
Txs warrior
Hilarious and just as I expected how this would unfold.
1. “Hey this high rank military russian guy died according to Ukraine!!!!!”
2. “Why are not Russia proving he is not dead then!!?!?!? It would be so easy to show him right?!? Why are they not showing him!!?”
3. Is that a pillow? What-a-bout Bundeswehr?
Keep pushing the goal post.
I want to see Socolov holding today’s Guardian in his hands
im still not sure why the presence of a pillow is significant.
That would be cruel and unusual punishment. I wouldn’t touch a copy of that rag, or even have one in my house. It’s bad enough having to share a country with it.
JACK
ISW is going totally bonkers.
Check Weeb Union YT and have a 😄.
Basically Russians are holding position to give the IMPRESSION that the counteroffensive is not going as good as it is. My favourite English expression is “you can’t make it up”.
Pls don’t drink or eat – !🙂 – while watching. ISW one of the most quoted experturds.
Jk reflux
It is hard to parade dead people and to my understanding it’s war crime. Yes I have seen Iraqis and Russians and Ukrainians pareded. As Craig M said few years ago it is ” War Porn”
Before we move along maybe a “Thank you Tom and others” for explaining, or British favourite “lessons to be learned”.
Most likely the tank story is not 100% true (official German soldiers) but from now on you will mention it ad nauseum as a proof of a lie and ignore all Ukrainian & co lies.
Even if Bundeswehr soldiers story turned to be true, they would simply move to another ‘whatabout’.
You did not like my childish joke but they would claim it was humanitarian mission and Russians are using it in propaganda war.
Mercenary was killed and it was portrayed as a volunteer delivering humanitarian aid since yes 2014.
Tatyana.
If Bundeswehr troops (or any NATO troops) are captured by the Russian invasion forces in temporarily occupied Ukraine that would be a far bigger deal than the death of a Russian Admiral.
Which is why I’m surprised that these Jungs haven’t been paraded before the Russian media yet.
Maybe getting a makeover?
mmm… the Russians are too busy discussing the applause for the Nazi in the Canadian Parliament.
It has already been reported that Trudeau mentioned Russian propaganda 🙂 and Elon Musk allegedly responded to this by saying that not everything that seems to be Russian propaganda is that.
And of course, while waiting for a comment from Zelensky, caustic jokes and sarcastic assumptions appeared. The best one so far is this one:
‘Waffen SS veteran Yaroslav Hunko apologized for being greeted by Zelensky. He didn’t know that dogs and Jews were allowed into the Canadian Parliament’.
Jk reflux
It is hard to parade dead people and to my understanding it’s a war crime. Yes I have seen Iraqis and Russians and Ukrainians paraded. As Craig M said few years ago, it is “War Porn”.
Tatyana that meme or joke about zeleni is brutal but great. I love dark humour!!
Pigeon English
I’m shaken by this ‘joke’, it’s unhuman, very brutal and I don’t know right words to describe what I feel. It took me some time to understand that actually there’s nothing offensive towards the Jews in it (unless they are willing to take offence), but sharply and precisely reveals the total surrealism of what had happened.
Also, I expect some ‘damage control’ to come. Perhaps they can make this Nazi to say he is sorry to be a Nazi? Anyway, I expect they plotted smth nazi whitewashing. Because I do not one second believe that they didn’t know whom they invited and greeted passionately in front of cameras for the whole world to see.
Let’s wait, soon we may learn that nazis are in fact not so bad guys and they are sorry to have exterminated so many Jews. That was a mistake, they should have killed the Russians instead.
“Which is why I’m surprised that these Jungs haven’t been paraded before the Russian media yet.”
Why would they want to do that? To satisfy a pseudonyminous Western blogger like you? Do you not think they have more important things to do?
If they did “parade” them, all that would happen is that there would be a cry of “fake” from the West. Nobody who currently thinks this not to be true would be convinced. After all, how difficult would it be to get some actors to pretend to be Bundeswehr soldiers?
Tatyana @ 21.02
It is surreal. If couple of Jewish organisations didn’t complain it would be ok. Jewish MP and others clapping shows heard mentality and manipulation. And much more.
I 100% agree with you that Zelenski’s comment about being Jewish from Ukraine would be really very interesting. No one will ever ask! This guy was literally a Nazi killing Jews, not some neo Nazis just hating Russians and loving Jews.
Hopefully you understand what I am trying to say!
Tatyana
Would you believe that (allegedly) I still can’t believe that in 70s Britain you could see “no dogs no blacks no Irish” on a pub entrance door.
If this is a lie pls estimated posters correct me. I only had confirmation from biased parties (ignoring dogs and what goes through family line).
While I was born in one of the most oppressive “regimes” 1964, Leader of the free World was segregating people based on the colour of their skin.
And when (I guess 70s) no blacks no dogs or Irish.
Yes poor veteran was surprised 😢.
” no dogs no blacks no Irish”
The way I heard it, it kicked off with “No hawkers, no circulars..” and the Irish came before the blacks. The notices were supposed to have been found in boarding house windows. In the 60s the Irish joked that, at least, since people started immigrating from Africa and the Caribbean, they the Irish, were no long at the bottom of the list. However, all this might be apocryphal.
BAYARD
And after we the skum East Europeans moved in every one moved up the ladder 🙂.
Pigeon English not everyone moved up the ladder. I happily share my slum with the new arrivals and I find them good neighbours And if you and the other new arrivals move on up, I still will be where I am right now and do my best to welcome the next wave of arrivals. The only place I intend to move on up to is the cemetery
Moon of Alabama, a generally well-informed and reliable blogger, has a good article entitled “Ukrainian Whoppers”. As well as the “not dead after all” admiral, it contains this nice passage:
‘Another whopper comes from the neoconservative Institute for the Study of War:
‘”ISW @TheStudyofWar – 4:03 UTC · Sep 25, 2023
‘”…Putin may have ordered the Russian military command to hold all Russia’s initial defensive positions to create the illusion that Ukrainian counteroffensives have not achieved any tactical or operational effects despite substantial Western support”.
‘As one commentator remarked:
‘“Putin orders Russian army to win battle to create the illusion of having won battle”’.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/09/ukrainian-whoppers.html#more
The other day I was amused, while watching “UK Column”, to see video of Zelensky addressing the UN General Assembly, with the camera apparently panning to a sea of attentive faces. Unfortunately, as the UK Column presenters pointed out, Zelensky himself could be clearly seen sitting in the audience. The grossly incompetent (or just lazy) propagandists had just replaced footage of the actual speech with some from a previous speech by someone quite different.
The genuine video from Zelensky’s address shows a hall that is very sparsely populated by obviously unimpressed spectators.
The distinctive blend of sloppiness, cynicism, and complete uninterest in the truth soon becomes all too familiar. It’s like Washington, but more so.
“Even Taiwan accepts it is part of China, it merely thinks its side of the Chinese Civil War should be running all of it.”
Craig, you know a lot about many things but you are decades out of date on the Taiwan question. The Taiwanese government is obliged to maintain the pretence that it is a part of China because anything else will be construed by the PRC as a declaration of independence. However it has long made clear it has no interest whatever in controlling the mainland.
Pigeon English
September 26, 2023 at 19:44
“Jk reflux
It is hard to parade dead people and to my understanding it’s a war crime. Yes I have seen Iraqis and Russians and Ukrainians paraded. As Craig M said few years ago, it is “War Porn”. ”
That’s a bit childish Pigeon English.
But sticks and stones….
so i guess using your standard the credibility of your source that the commander is dead is nonexistent. why should we believe your other sources, or the arguments you make?
JK redux
Sorry for asking, but have you actually read the source which started this discussion? It was there from the very beginning that the crew was killed and the MechVod died later:
“I asked the doc how long he could live, and the doc answered – a few more minutes. I told the German that the wound was too severe and he had no chance of survival. He said that he loved his child and wife very much and regretted that he agreed to come here. We began to prepare him for evacuation, but he fainted and after a couple of minutes became “two hundred” (“cargo 200” – killed in action. – Ed.)
So, if you expect to see dead bodies…
Convenient. The dead can’t talk and a dead German looks much like a dead Ukrainian or a dead Russian.
My guess is that this story will go the same way as the senior NATO officers captured at Aleppo, the senior NATO Lt General captured in Mariupol and the 200 NATO officers killed in a bunker in Kyiv. We never heard anything more about those either.
We may guess this or that, and the things may turn out to be quite different in the end.
Like, who in their sane mind could believe that Hunter Biden left his laptop at repairs and forgot about it? But, if you think about him as of Biden it may seem impossible, at the same time, if you think of him as of a drunkard and a drug addict, then it’s not that much impossible.
That is why control of mass media, and especially of the language is important. Wordings build impressions, impressions facilitate opinions, opinions form beliefs, beliefs motivate actions.
See the difference: Ukrainian hero, Canadian hero, WW2 veteran vs Waffen SS Galizien nazi.
By the way, the ex-Waffen SS Galizien nazis have their own brotherhood.
“The brotherhood has national organizations and local branches in Germany, Canada, the United States, Argentina, and Australia. In Great Britain former members of the division co-operate with the brotherhood but have founded a separate organization known as the Ukrainian Former Combatants in Great Britain.”
From their website
https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CB%5CR%5CBrotherhoodofFormerSoldiersoftheFirstUkrainianDivisionoftheUkrainianNationalArmy.htm
Note, they avoid mentioning Nazism, or WaffenSS, or Hitler. Just a cozy brotherhood of former combatants.
“,beliefs motivate actions.” and actions make worlds. Control the language and you control the world.
“Writers are the engineers of the human souls”
Joseph Stalin
Ergo
“Free your mind and your ass will follow”
Funkadelic
The brotherhood don’t mention many things but they do mention the impressive donations they receive, in a graded list down to 100 dollars. Nice work if you can get it and you have a strong stomach or you are a Nazi.
There is a big difference between literally a Nazi and far right and right and conservative.
Calling everyone on the Right a Nazi is the dumbest thing the modern left can do. If you can’t see the difference, as someone said, you are a borderline Nazi from so-called Eastern Europe.
But kidda I’m not on the modern left. I shit on left and right and all the other labels used by Power to control the narrative.. I’m on the side of humanity, y’ know, the People – the dispossessed, the abused and the murdered
As for calling people Nazis, the brotherhood’s website is about the members of SS Galicia not the “Right” and I think it fair to assume those who work on it are, y’know Nazis I’ll admit it is possible that some who work there pretend to be Nazis to get their hands on the cash but as you have pointed out above,
“Basically Russians are holding position to give the IMPRESSION that the counteroffensive is not going as good as it is”
Pigeon English
there is no functional difference between the two cases. Incorrect assumptions lead to incorrect conclusions Old Bean
You have a bad case of “itchy trigger finger” but that’s OK none of us are perfect. Calling people who are not Nazis, (even borderline) Nazis is shit from the gutter. If you can’t see the difference, as someone said, you are a borderline Nazi from so-called Eastern Europe.
So Pigeon English “come play my game. I’ll test ya”
Will moon @ 21.54
¨You have a bad case of “itchy trigger finger” Yes .
My mobile is even more ¨itchier¨.
My comment/ answer ended in a wrong place.
Never the less I don´t understand why are you replying, as it was addressed to you!
What game do you want to play? You are much better, so I am out.
OK misunderstanding on my part, mistake on your part. If you’re ok with this we can leave it there.
My excuse, I thought you were calling me a Nazi. Your excuse, you’re using a phone.
Do you think this fair?
will moon 23 46
No worries !
I stumbled on the comment I was Reacting!
I would not label you anything yet 😀.
i know it’s shocking that people die in a war which has killed hundreds of thousands.
“The dead can’t talk”
I’m afraid I’m going to have to disagree with you there, Pears. If the dead can’t talk then how do you account for Liz Truss?
“We never heard anything more about those either.”
Perhaps you would care to explain why we should have heard anything more about them. You seem to think that governments have a duty to tell you things that you want to know, so that you can then say that they are lying when the answer is not the one that you wanted.
In any case absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
An excellent point Bayard and I suspect it has a far greater width of applicability than the current case which you have so trenchantly, and if I may say so, sucessfully addressed.
Sometimes there are delightful mornings when you can start your day leisurely with a cup of coffee and pancakes, and scrolling through the headlines on the main page of a news site puts you in a good mood for the whole day. Look what they gave me today:
Russia expands sanctions against Britain
Anthony Radakin, Madeleine Alessandri, Cressida Hogg, Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies, Henry Jackson Foundation and Civitas Think Tank – all of them must be very much upset 🙂
The Canadian Parliament agreed to condemn Nazism
Deputies of all parties agreed with the proposal of Yves-François Blanchet from the Bloc Québécois party to condemn Nazism in all its forms. Bravo!
Rada deputy took offense at the United States after receiving a list of reforms
“Just give us weapons, reforms are not your business.” reminds me of “Elon Musk, завали е*ало и просто давай Старлинк”
Biden said he wants to climb a tree
Go ahead, Joe! Hope you fall and break your neck!
What a fun Russian morning! And all this against the usual boring background of the imminent loss of the dollar’s status as a world currency. Well, okay, this time at least they refer to Christina Lagarde herself, and fairly authoritative Western sources.
“Even Taiwan accepts it is part of China”…. Clearly Taiwan does not accept its subjugation to the PRC, or CCP rather, so your point “you cannot invade your own territory” is a sneaky/weird semantic diversion.
In any civil war a country can invade “itself” the way you are defining a country, and clearly invasion of Taiwan by the CCP wouldn’t be something the CCP are happy about.
I used to have some faith in your blog, but this and other strange, aggressively vehement pushing of mistruths or half truths really erodes any credibility you have in my eyes, which is unfortunate as you seem one of the more articulate pro-independence voices out there.
the Kuomintang took over Taiwan without a great deal of respect for the locals, subjugated it you might say, after they lost their civil war to Mao. The CCP is understandably not happy about the prospect of the US taking over Taiwan in the way it took over Ukraine. The people who run the UK presently are very much on board with these proxy wars, why do you agree with them, if you support Scottish independence?
There are loads of NeoCon indy supporters who align with the wildest hawks in Washington and London. On everything. Craig gets them popping up all the time claiming to have lost faith in him any time he strays from the SNP-NuLab-Tory foreign policy consensus. To retain their faith he would need to become a McCain-Hillary fangirl like Nic Sturgeon.
ProIndyPolski , life is full of disappointments and people go through all kind of changes. Don’t worry you’ll get over it
I say this as a person whose life was full of disappointments and I went through all kinds of changes. I got over it. Don’t have faith in a blog nor even an articulate pro-independence voice, have faith in yourself
Consider Galatians 5:6
For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value. All that matters is faith, expressed through love.
Learn to love yourself and remember I have faith in you
“I used to have some faith in your blog, but this and other strange, aggressively vehement pushing of mistruths or half truths really erodes any credibility you have in my eyes, which is unfortunate as you seem one of the more articulate pro-independence voices out there.”
If Craig is wrong about some things, it does not follow that he is wrong about everything. No-one, not even the Pope any more, is right all the time. If you can only believe people that you can trust to be 100% right, you are going to be very short of people to believe. Try using your brain to determine if someone is telling the truth instead of simply either lapping up the narrative unquestioned or rejecting it out of hand depending on whose narrative it is.
Another interesting video posted by Max Blumenthal today.
“Jimmy Dore made the most of his 10 minutes at the UN Security Council. A jagoff nightclub comedian once again puts the entire Western media to shame on the Nord Stream attacks and Ukraine proxy war.”
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1706903328343396746?s=20
another interesting article from the Grayzone
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/09/26/canadas-ukrainian-nazi-ottawas-policy/
pointed out that Freeland’s grandfather was a nazi collaborator and public relations guy in Poland. Now Poland is reportedly looking into extraditing the Nazi collaborator war criminal who was applauded by Trudeau and the Canadian parliament recently. “We thank him for his service” said Anthony Rota, speaker of the Canadian Parliament. remind me, which side did Canada fight on in World War 2? I think they forgot.
The Grayzone have another nice piece showing the connections between the CIA (albeit they only mention the National Endowment for Democracy) and the British state’s “counter-disinformation” unit BBC Verify, an outfit towards which any remaining opponents of the rulers in Britain will have to direct an increasing amount of intention as time goes on.
Those who don’t quite get the seriousness of what’s going on should ask why the state needs such an outfit, and why it needs it now.
I haven’t done a lengthy comparative analysis, but I’d hazard the guess that there is an even greater “counter-disinformation” capability now in the aforementioned country than there was during early fascism in 2020-22.
“Do they really think we are so powerful?”
at the risk of veering off topic–
https://sonar21.com/did-zelensky-scam-trudeau-with-an-elderly-nazi/
some nice cartoons. Trudean offered an oh so sincere “apology” for the standing ovation for the war criminal in the Canadian Parliament, then appeared to do a 180, warning us of so-called Russian disinformation. it is not clear, probably not even to Trudeau, what he was suggesting there, but there is a reflex to blame everything on Russia. He can’t help it at this point, poor thing.
It’s totally hypocritical for anyone who holds a state position in the west to criticise anyone else for committing war crimes.
Really the Canadian parliament should fête Germans who were Nazis 80 years ago, because I’m sure they’ve fêted many Is*i figures in the long decades since Canada “recognised” the Is*i state in the late 1940s, for which they’ve never apologised. They might as well be consistent and fête all ethnic-supremacist war criminals and not just some of them.
Meanwhile it’s interesting how the ongoing terrorist expulsion of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh is getting so little coverage in the west. Anyone who’s really against war crimes will be paying attention to this, even if state media doesn’t give them the go-ahead.
One would almost think the expansion of NATO member Turkey’s sphere of influence to the south of Russia is in the western strategic interest, regardless of how many Armenians have to die or to be expelled for that holy cause to be served.
T rebel
Perhaps the “terrorist expulsion of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh” is not getting much attention because that’s not what it is. Don’t forget that those Armenians you find to be so wonderful themselves ethnically cleansed the Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh and large surrounding areas in 1991. This present event is Azerbaijan getting back the territory they lost control of in 1991 (second phase of that). They’ve asked the Armenians to stay, but the Armenians are hightailing it out, because they remember what they did to the Azerbaijanis 30 years ago.
Trudeau was a poster child of all the establishment libs who called Trump and Corbyn Nazis. Why are their anti Nazi voices now silent? 🤔
This quote below by Orwell should be read by all citizens every morning before reading the news, better yet, journalists should read this before they print the news altogether:
“Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9424448-early-in-life-i-have-noticed-that-no-event-is
“I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various “party lines.”
That, I suspect, is how the majority of our history has always been written.
See the transcript of the recent talk between Elon Musk and Benyamin Netanyahu for a twist on the idea that history is written by the victors. Netanyahu was explaining that that’s what people say, but nowadays when you’ve beaten your enemies they can sometimes get it together to write stuff on Wikipedia. What he says shouldn’t be taken literally. What he means is that once you’ve beaten your enemies you must go on and on and on, beating the sh*t out of them and, y’know, preventing them from getting together and preventing any narrative other than your own from gaining traction.
His actual words in context are here:
https://www.rev.com/blog/transcripts/elon-musk-and-benjamin-netanyahu-discuss-ai-anti-semitism-and-charging-fees-for-x-transcript
Wikipedia, he says? His enemies post stuff there, do they? Look at this page, to see what it’s really like on that crock of a website:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Muhammad_al-Durrah
Bayard
Indeed, living in times of war one realize what media write and what is actually going on the ground is two different things, makes one wonder how much war-reporting from earlier wars have been twisted to fit the narrative. This quote below, also from Orwell, is also on point:
“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”
Thank god for people like Julian Assange, Clare Daly and Craig Murray. At least there are sane people in the world making their views known around the globe.
I am so shocked by the performance in the Canadian Parliament. I sent this to all the leaders of parties and my MP. I will get a reply from the PM’s office about being sucked in by Russian disinformation and another from my MP, a conservative, about how terribly the liberals are running the country etc etc. They are all to blame, we are all to blame! What can we do?
To whom it may concern
I have written to you in the past concerning Canada’s role in Ukraine and obviously you have your point of view and I have mine. However, the spectacle in the House of Commons on Friday was absolutely disgusting. It was not just that you were applauding and “honouring” the leader of a very nasty right wing government supported by nazi elements with no democratic or inclusive pretension but you were also applauding and “honouring” a member of a very nasty military unit called the SS Galicia Division and by doing so you were also applauding and “honouring” the murderers of thousands of civilians in WW2. This is not Russian disinformation as you call it, it is fact. What, sadly, have we become? You have all been busy allocating blame for this parliamentary debacle. You are all to blame! You need to stand back and look at yourselves and see how you are seen by the rest of the world and the rest of the world is not the west. Your values and not my values nor are they those of many people who are not led astray by the propaganda from the main stream media, US government, and parliament. This is NOT Russian disinformation as you call it. In fact, you would do well to actually listen to what Presidents Putin, Xi and many of those leaders in the Global South are saying. They are not the war mongers, supporters of ever vaster military expenditures. You are. And now we are celebrating FASCISM in our parliament. What have we become?
And it is not a solution to punish an old man who was part of a great barbarity. He will be dead soon. You have to concentrate on rectifying the great barbarity which you are supporting – ALL of you.
Rosemary MacKenzie
I’m sure that you know that the idiotic Speaker of the Canadian Parliament has resigned.
Quite right.
I haven’t seen any explanation from him as to who recommended the superannuated former SS man to him or whether he knew him personally.
That would be interesting.
I do think that calling Zelensky the “leader of a very nasty right wing government” is hyperbole.
What is so nasty and right wing about him and his government compared with (say) Victor Orbán or indeed the charming Gospodin Putin?
@JK Redux – Did Putin ever back neo-Nazi shelling for 8 years of any area that had declared UDI after referendums? That’s what the Kiev regime did in Donetsk and Luhansk, including backed by Zelensky’s puppetmaster Kolomoisky and then by Zelensky himself as president.
You use the word “gospodin”, which means “Mr”. Please can you remind me which out of Putin and Zelensky played the role of an “ordinary bloke” elected to the presidency? By “play the role”, I mean on primetime television.
If you want to compare and contrast Putin and Zelensky, let’s do it.
The government in Kiev is certainly very nasty and rightwing. I doubt that puppet Zelensky is anything close to being the leader of it. Imagine if say Rupert Murdoch or Robert Maxwell or Elon Musk paid for Paul Eddington to become the British king or even the prime minister… It’s like that.
T Rebel/Jack
I’ll wait to see if Rosemary wants to reply before replying to you and Jack.
Hard to keep track of the sequence of posts on this forum sometimes…
of course you’ll wait, like you’ve waited to make replies to several people yesterday.
JK Redux
Why not condemning Ukraine that have multiple streets, monuments celebrating the Waffen SS galiciza in Ukraine? Or are you unaware of this too?
“Zelensky visits Ukrainian Neo-Nazi leader (VIDEO) “
https://swentr.site/russia/581278-zelensky-azov-neo-nazi-biletsky/
This is like the US having David Duke as a commander in their military. You do not find the same perverted pro-nazi behavior in any other country on earth.
Or why not the commander in chief that pose in front of multiple nazi/fascists not to mention the black-bearded right-wing fascist to the right of him?
https://www.wsws.org/asset/01c03054-efc0-4f9d-9301-c4dd1851f75b?rendition=image1280
Besides do you even know what the red and black color in the flag refer to? It is not a coincidental color pick I can tell you.
He even had a painting of Bandera in his room!
Ukraine’s Parliament pays tribute to Nazi collaborator and terrorist Stepan Bandera
https://www.idcommunism.com/2023/01/ukraines-parliament-pays-tribute-to-nazi-collaborator-terrorist-stepan-bandera.html
It’s sad to see some so-called “anarchists” in the Ukraine support the Kiev regime’s war effort and spread lies about the disputed territories. They are an insult to the memory of Nestor Makhno who fought not only against the Whites and the Bolsheviks, but also against the Ukrainian nationalists. Presumably if there are any decent anarchists in the Ukraine they stay well away from the black and red flag and use the black-only one if they find they need a flag at all.
I’m no hero worshipper, but it would be positive if Makhno’s name were heard more of right now. He was from Gulyai Pole in Zaporozhye. Gulyai Pole is very close to the contact line. I’m not even sure what side of it it’s on.
No no, this red-black flag has nothing to do with the anarchist flag, the red and black color flags in Ukraine are related to neo-nazi/fascists groups stemming originally from the ukrainian nazi-collaborator organization “OUN” to this one in the photo, belonging to the so called “Right-sektor” organisation.
The colors in turn are based on nazi color of red and black, meaning blut and soil.
I.e.
https://www.worldjewishcongress.org/en/news/ukrainian-far-right-party-upstages-fifa-with-visit-to-zurich-headquarters
https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/natsouth/83997235/98597/98597_original.png
Have you seen Zelensky issue a statement of regret for honouring that Nazi in Canada? No. The only response from his government has been to hurriedly issue a stamp bearing the image of Mr Hunka the SS man. If you see nothing right-wing or nasty about that then I shudder to think how far right and nasty you must be yourself.
Joel
I hadn’t seen that a stamp honouring Hunka was issued by Ukraine.
https://vancouversun.com/news/politics/hunka-incident-fuelling-russian-propaganda/wcm/2939d834-4442-46b8-b578-e7e29aeb0ceb
Is this the source of the claim?
yes this is well known, now youre all caught up, the right wing government of Ukraine issued a stamp honoring the war criminal who was further honored by a standing ovation from neo nazi favoring politicians in the Canadian parliament.
“What is so nasty and right wing about him and his government compared with (say) Victor Orbán or indeed the charming Gospodin Putin?”
Even if Messrs Putin and Orbán headed the nastiest and most right wing governments ever to be inflicted on this planets, governments that would make Goebbels turn pale from horror, that would not lessen the nastiness or political inclination of Ukraine’s government one whit. Ukraine was, for many years, the most corrupt government in Europe, even in the eyes of the Western organisations that measure such things. It has since been rehabilitated, but not by very much.
“I haven’t seen any explanation from him as to who recommended the superannuated former SS man to him or whether he knew him personally.”
It’s probably been made worth his while to resign and keep stumm about that.
With the general ban on talking about Ukraine’s nazis it would be impossible for the Canadian Government’s PR people to warn their masters about this impending PR disaster. Thus the CG have become the victims of their own narrative control.
Well, folks, this is the week when the British interior minister (“home secretary”) Suella Braverman declared that uncontrolled immigration was an “existential” threat to the west, as has been said before her by Jean Raspail, supporters of the “Great Replacement” “theory”, and loons such as the Znazi Melanie Phillips who go on about “Londonistan”, etc.
“They’re an existential threat” means the presence of too many immigrants leads to native people dying out.
It’s the neo-Nazi white supremacists’ “14 words” in poncy talk.
Never forget that some people actually want race war. A vile and foul fact, but true nonetheless. There are a lot of them in the British army, among other places. They already believe that “we” must stand up to “the invaders”.
Just look up NATO statements from 2022.
For the first time ever NATO included “immigration” as a prime threat to the “alliance” (what a great term, much better than “Warsaw Pact” was) – next to RU and CHINA. So people in small boats crossing the Mediterranean are now as dangerous as nations with 1000s of nuclear warheads. That´s really cool.
The level of domestic freedom in a society is no indicator for the kind of foreign policy of that same nation.
In fact there is a possible correlation – the “more progressive” a society was in the past internally, the more likely it resorted to heinous crimes abroad and imperialist practice.
p.s. Moon of Alabama quoting yesterday´s NYT regarding propaganda on our side:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/26/world/europe/ukraine-russia-war-disinformation.html
“Few military analysts, […], believe the Ukrainian military’s optimistic daily account of Russian casualties running into the hundreds that is nonetheless reported widely in Ukrainian media. (…) Mr. Gerashchenko said that, in the end, war propaganda is only effective when it accompanies battlefield successes. The missile strike on the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet last week, he said, was a “stunning success of Ukrainian intelligence and the air force that fired the cruise missiles on a supposedly well-defended site.
(…) You cannot win the propaganda war without winning the real war,” he added.”
I didn’t know we were still allowed to say the word “immigration”. For many years official sources such as the BBC have referred only to “migrants” (as if they were birds following their seasonal instincts).
“Well, folks, this is the week when the British interior minister (“home secretary”) Suella Braverman declared that uncontrolled immigration was an “existential” threat to the west, ”
Shall we look at Suella’s personal history?
Braverman was born in Harrow, Greater London, and raised in Wembley.[1] She is the daughter of Uma (née Mootien-Pillay) and Christie Fernandes,[2] both of Indian origin,[3][4] who immigrated to Britain in the 1960s from Mauritius and Kenya respectively.
let me guess Christie Fernandes was making a living in GB cleaning public toilets, Uma was working in a slaughterhouse and they had been hiding in a truck for 96 hours before entering GB illegally.
Braverman went to private school in England. But it doesn’t matter much. Some children of working class immigrant parents can still become bourgeois Tory a*seholes. And not everyone who sends their children to private school is a bourgeois Tory a*sehole anyway. Braverman’s mother was admittedly a Tory a*sehole (and councillor), but Suella could have trodden another path if she’d wanted.
My prediction is the Tories will announce a “crackdown on knife crime”, to whoops from readers of rightwing tabloids and all who “think” like them.
It’s worth watching how the state and other big media are reporting today’s killing in Croydon. There will probably be interviews with masked “gang members” saying that where they live everyone carries a machete and you’ve got to, haven’t you, because that’s the way the world is in such zones of London and Birmingham, you’re “born” into it, and similar stuff that shocks the pants off of (and deliciously excites) many who were wondering whether they might do something other than don white hoods and vote Tory in the next election.
Ministers will stand behind boards with striped emergency-type edges and say we’ve had enough, we’re going to sort out the inner cities, there are no urban no-go areas from now on, this is what “the people of this country” want.
I mean more like this video from a few years ago:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9KK1ShmqnQ
Gun-toting cops in London are already threatening the judge in the Chris Kaba case, saying if he decides the defendant can be named publicly then they’ll “lay down their firearms” in protest. Hundreds in fact have already done so, but it’s been made clear there will be big trouble if the judge allows their comrade to be named.
wow, it´s like the 1980s riots all over again (which I frankly only know of via British left wing movie directors, like Frears and Loach).
Wasn´t the French (frm?) minister of the Interior a similiar case – an immigrants´ child who made her way through the French ranks installing policies totally opposite to her life experience.
(I never believe a word when any such person openly argues in favour of law&order bullshit. They build their careers on that but do so fully aware of the treachery.)
re: Assange, growing support by governments
“Australian, Latin American Leaders Demand End To Assange Prosecution During US Trips”
by Chip Gibbons 26/9/23
https://thedissenter.org/australian-latin-american-leaders-demand-end-to-assange-prosection-during-us-trips/
“The continued prosecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has the potential to create serious diplomatic problems for the United States.
Last week, during the 78th session of the United Nations General Assembly, two heads of state raised the issue of Assange’s imprisonment.
That same week an unprecedented cross-party delegation of Australian lawmakers came to the U.S. Australia is a key part of the U.S.-dominated security order, which makes the growing opposition within Australia a unique challenge.
During their addresses to the UN General Assembly, both Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Honduran President Xiomara Castro called for Assange to be freed. Lula stated, “It is essential to preserve the freedom of the press. A journalist like Julian Assange cannot be punished for informing society in a transparent and legitimate way.” Castro struck a similar chord, calling Assange a “faithful defender of free expression.”
Gibbons is also quoting from an earlier own text:
“(Ecuadorian president) Moreno’s revocation of Assange’s asylum comes on the heels of a $4.2 billion IMF loan, leading critics such as former Ecuadorian foreign minister Guillaume Long to assert the two were connected.”
A bounty of $4.2 billion for Assange is a remarkable sum. Probably higher than for any real crook, mafia don or bank robber.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Keelhaul
“the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division, which was recruited from Ukrainians in Galicia were not repatriated, ostensibly because Galicia had belonged to Poland prior to September 1939, but in reality because MI6 wished to use the prisoners in future operations. The officer in charge of screening the 14th Division for war criminals, Fitzroy Maclean, admitted in an interview in 1989 that it was “fairly clear that there was every probability that there were war criminals amongst them”, but argued that in the context of the Cold War, such men were needed to fight against the Soviet Union. On 23 March 1947, the United Kingdom granted asylum to the entire 14th Division, whose men were subsequently settled in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.“
“When people are asked what they admire about Britain, most usually say it is our values”
— Gordon Brown
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-334208/Its-time-celebrate-Empire-says-Brown.html
Did Mr Brown ever say what those values are? I would guess not, as any conceivable set of “British values” would have been trashed by the acts of his and subsequent governments.
Freedom of speech probably comes first, as it is the prerequisite for all other freedoms. Then freedom of assembly, religion, belief, association, travel. A free press – meaning freedom to publish anything at all through any medium. Free courts of law, uninfluenced by politics, where no one can be condemned or punished except by judgment of a jury of his peers. (Incidentally British defamation law has long been justly notorious throughout the world as favouring the plaintiff, to the extent that fat cats flock to London from everywhere to have their critics punished).
Another vital principle is that the government and civil service work for the public, not vice versa. And certainly not, as at present, for giant corporations.
British values? Don’t make me laugh.
He talked of global admiration for British tolerance, belief in liberty and sense of fair play. This was 2005, as the full unfolding of the unprovoked invasion of Iraq was being broadcast across the world. It was boasted of in a speech demanding celebration of the British empire.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2018/12/19/how-britain-stole-45-trillion-from-india
I dare say Brown was fully aware of British tolerance for pitiless SS war criminals, but could hardly boast that it was a uniquely British value as events of this week have demonstrated.
“British tolerance”!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Gordon Brown? Yes, I remember his words when he was confronted with an older woman who was moaning about immigration. One of the tabloids “listened in” as he sat in his car and moaned to some aid or other about what she had said. I was not impressed.
Sure, he was being violated by the eavesdroppers and his diatribe was private but nonetheless there are many who agree with the woman. I meet people saying the same thing as her frequently and I don’t feel the need to privately vent about it and I am just a nobody from nowhere, in the Eduardo Galeano sense. Yet I have no trouble attempting to explain to people who express the same opinions as the woman why their view might be worth revising.
If you live in a privileged bubble with no experience of ordinary people you speak like Brown and sound like an effete snob. I consider the opinions of people like this worth nothing. So if he says something about an important issue I ignore it and note those who agree or support these opinions for future reference.
Him, with his super-powered education was unable to find anything to say to the woman, yet I – a nobody – find it easy to invoke a positive response from people who moan about immigration.
Where there is a will there is a way.
Even worse, a Ukrainian court has ruled that the Waffen SS Galiciza military formation actually were not nazis at all and are thus free to in effect run around with nazi symbols in Ukraine, which many Ukrainian soldiers do in the war.
“On 23 September 2020, the Ukrainian Supreme Court ruled that symbols of SS Division Galicia do not belong to the Nazis and therefore were not banned in the country”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/14th_Waffen_Grenadier_Division_of_the_SS_(1st_Galician)#Legacy
One wonder where Germany is? They usually hunt down old nazi war criminals, but now they are silent? As usual, Ukraine has a free-pass to do anything, obviously.
German ambassador attended Canadian honoring of WWII Nazi – Berlin
https://swentr.site/news/583676-germany-ambassador-nazi-ovations/
Germany, in my naive but absolutely frank assessment (pardon the harshness of the language), has become a submissive bitch of the USA. They have forgotten what it means to be an adult nation and simply calmly and confidently admit their mistakes with dignity. Admit mistakes, learn lessons and move on.
Instead, they have dissolved their national identity into a kind of neurotic jelly caution, are afraid to declare their own interests and have no clear position in politics. Germany is now a pitiful sight.
I hope someday to see those Germans who are described in classical Russian books as a country of engineers. People with amazing work ethic, a love of science and philosophy, with a goal of prosperity and sharing their great achievements with the world.
The Dutch had a similar image when we learned from them to build ships in the time of Peter the Great. Now it is just a country of legalized marijuana and prostitution. How great!
they are still occupied, they have stockholm syndrome plus the leaders have been bribed.
Tatyana
I assume one major reason for misconception of this war by German educated classes and leading political classes on almost all sides (the union leaders have adopted pro-war positions just last week) – is the complete lack of knowledge of what is really going on in Ukraine.
I had a meeting with friends some time ago. I on purpose did not mention this topic. The comments made by my, well, friends, were hard to stomach because said people are decent beings, they have had difficulties in their lives and I respect them for various reasons. They are not your usual well-bred elite brat kind of people without any sorrows.
However on this particular evening the things said were completely going overboard.
And it was literally repetition of what they had read in the established press and German state broadcasting, sometimes even brought forward with a vengeance that I am not used to. (But this might be the case because they really care…)
Which was like this:
-Putin is a monster killing everyone in Russia
-Now Putin will go for Europe
-Putin lost the war
-Ukrainians are heroes, Russians are animals
-Russian economy is just about to collapse
-the Chinese government is fucked because they too will crumble
How is it possible?
Very simple: Look into the papers most of these people read and you will find a complete lack of serious reporting.
Its mindboggling in fact.
Just 2 weeks ago a Swiss so-called military analyst from the “esteemed” ETH University in Zurich gave an extensive interview on the Russian performance on the battle-field in one of Germany´s most important daily papers. He literally said the Russians were acting insane, illogically, doing things like standing in front of their trenches instead of inside; having serious trouble with their artillery.
And so on.
What you did not read was serious info about the entire front, serious info about what Airforce, missile attacks, RU High Command planning were doing.
Serious info on tactics and strategy etc. And you did not hear a single word about Ukrainian mounting problems. Not to speak of the dead.
So UKR was actually left out in an interview about this War in Ukraine. (Another gem in these pieces.)
Not a single word about things you can now even read in the paper in the US, that RU is getting stronger and that they have adapted extremely well and used this war “wisely” in terms of military theory and practice. etc.
Anything said was either incorrect, or single anecdotes describing the alleged experience of a single soldier, or a small group, which could be true or not, completely omitting major developments instead.
So eventually nothing was of any relevance for what is happening.
Imagine what it does to your understanding if you are being fed this kind of info 24/7. And since it allegedly is a serious paper you would never doubt that.
Of course time is money so they won´t have the luxury of thinking about the source, seek out others and question it all.
And had I just mentioned a few contradictions, I might have risked our relationship. Even though I know that I am better informed by several magnitudes.
But this is true for US reporters too, if they belong to the Atlanticist category e.g.
A former senior reporter who worked for Voice of America participated in an awfully depressing panel with David Swanson and Ray McGovern.
Jim Brooke is his name. He is plain and simple a complete idiot. And he allegedly travelled Ukraine East and West, Russia and so forth. He has zero understanding.
And this is as much true for German correspondents in Russia. This shouldn´t be a surprise since a reporter can very simply spend years in a capital only visiting the press conferences of the government, attend embassy parties and then report back what politicians and diplomats with very particular interests have told him; THAT nowadays goes for reporting. Any teenager in high school does a better job in her first paper.
https://raymcgovern.com/2023/09/25/debate-is-war-in-ukraine-justified/
Another example would be a sane guy like Anatol Lieven. He was in Ukraine past February I believe. At that time Russian surface-to-air missiles allegedly were used against ground targets, which was considered crude by the Russians since surface to air missiles are not made for ground targets.
There never was really proof for this. And made absolutely no sense since SAMs are too weak for ground targets.
Especially if one knows that the Russians have one thing in abundance, and that´s artillery.
Anyhow Lieven stated this in two reports. Not even assuming that it’s nonsense.
However I have never again heard this allegation from any other side again, including Lieven himself. It just disappeared (like almost all of these misunderstandings / lies / allegations / fabrications / rumours.)
I really assume he believed anything the Ukrainians were telling him during his visit re: military. It might be different with political issues.
But the true knowledge about things going on is extremely limited. And in Germany you see a mass of articles on all these topics churned out every single day stuffing peoples heads with distortions, fabrications. Instead of reporters telling people: “Hey guys, we just don’t know.”
P.S. read this piece on Nordstream by a colleague of Lievens on Responsible Statecraft. She manages to mention Sy Hersh´s report ONCE. While evaluating the nothingness of the fantastic ideas about Ukrainians blowing up Nordstream.
And the author Ms. Vlahos is not your usual idiotic author. Still she does this, instead of maybe picking up on Hersh´s trail and research and maybe helping to bolster his findings. Not a single reporter in the “elite” US media has done that:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/nord-stream-pipeline-one-year/
Jack
Denazification was a sham in West Germany, where Nazi Reinhardt Gehlen – founder of the modern German Foreign security service (BND) – ran a state within a state for decades after WW2. Also always worth reminding ourselves that German Nazis were founding fathers of NATO and the European Union, two of the most respected institutions in the modern world.
Hunka´s story became known via Ivan Katchanovski from the University of Ottawa. After the scandal he provided the politicians with biographical documents that Hunka had voluntarily joined the Waffen SS in 1943.
Katchanovski is the same guy who has done the best research on the Maidan snipers which has been bluntly suppressed by academia.
Following German text is just a bit more expansive on the topic in general. Pointing out in the end that lately Berlin has even voted against the regular UN votes against nazism which is hardly being reported in the German press. A double standard that goes without saying of course:
https://www.german-foreign-policy.com/news/detail/9359
Much has been discussed here before, but to recall it is important:
About German Ambasador Sparwasser in Canada I haven´t found anything so far. Sometimes, I assume, RT is not that exact with details every time. But neither are German papers any more – if its the “right” enemy. And eventually no one will whistleblow on Sparwasser in case she knew in advance of who the old guy was.
excerpts:
-The background to Hunka’s appearance in Parliament in Ottawa is not least that Canada became a place of refuge for large parts of the Ukrainian Nazi collaboration after the Second World War. Although Canada officially denied entry to members of the Waffen SS, it granted a principled exemption to the Waffen SS Galicia Division in 1950. In 1986, an official inquiry remarkably concluded that “allegations of war crimes” against the division had “never” been adequately substantiated. Critics classified Canada as a “safe haven for Nazi criminals” years ago.Among the alleged war criminals who were never convicted were Ukrainians, including Ukrainian members of the Waffen SS.
-After several years of holding other commemorations for the division in western Ukraine – where the manifestation of Ukrainian nationalism shaped by fascist and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera is particularly entrenched – hundreds marched through Kiev for the first time on April 28, 2021, to commemorate the founding of the Waffen SS unit in 1943.
-Members of the Waffen-SS are also honored in the Baltic states. In Estonia, for example, a number of monuments commemorating Estonian Waffen SS volunteers have been erected since the 1990s. International attention was attracted, for example, by a memorial stone in the Estonian village of Mustla dedicated to Alfons Rebane, an Estonian who rose to the rank of Standartenführer in the Waffen SS and continued the fight against the Soviet Union after the end of World War II, albeit now underground. In 1961 he fled to the Federal Republic. The daily newspaper Die Welt stated a few years ago that “in Estonia, as in the two other Baltic states of Lithuania and Latvia,” there was “little fear of contact with the Waffen SS”. In Latvia, on the other hand, a public memorial march is held every year in honor of the Latvian members of the Waffen SS; the most recent one took place on March 16 of this year. There, too, the Nazi collaborators are held in high esteem as the most determined fighters against the Soviet Union and Russia.
-In Germany, this has for some time led the German government to officially adopt a softer stance toward Nazi collaboration organizations, including the Waffen SS. This is evident in the UN General Assembly’s regular votes on resolutions opposing any “glorification of Nazism,” which include honoring or glorifying the Waffen-SS, among others. For years, the German government could not bring itself to support the resolution, but abstained in the vote – on the grounds that the wording “sweepingly insinuates a connection to Nazi crimes for persons who campaigned for the independence of the Baltic states from the Soviet Union in the 1940s.” Now, in November of last year, Berlin even explicitly refused to condemn the “glorification of Nazism.” The background for this was the Ukraine war. A total of 52 states voted no – including almost all of those that usually proudly present themselves as champions of “Western values.
AG
Wikipedia says of Rebane:
“Rebane served as an officer in the Estonian Army until Soviet troops occupied the country in 1940. The Soviets disbanded and absorbed most of the Estonian Armed Forces and arrested and executed the entire Estonian high command. Many junior officers, such as Rebane, were dismissed due to their lack of “political reliability” and were liable to be deported. For a while, Rebane worked in construction, then fled into the forests when the Soviets began mass deportations in 1941. He established and led an anti-Soviet Forest Brothers unit in Virumaa (Northern Estonia) in May 1941.[3]
After Germany had taken control of Estonia, Rebane joined the German Wehrmacht where he served in its combat formations in Northwestern Russia, subsequently becoming the captain of the 184th Security Battalion, then major of the Estonian 658th Eastern Battalion. In February 1944 Rebane’s unit was transferred to the Narva Front and attached to the Wehrmacht’s 26th Army Corps on 2 March. On 27 April 1944, the unit was released from the Wehrmacht. Rebane, after initially refusing, was forced to join[4] the newly formed 20th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Estonian) of the Waffen-SS, eventually becoming colonel of the 47th Waffen-Grenadier Regiment.[1] The Estonian division played a significant role in the Battle of Narva and the Battle of Emajõgi, holding back the Soviet re-occupation of Estonia until the Soviet Tallinn Offensive, September 1944 while suffering heavy casualties. Rebane’s unit was then evacuated to Germany for refitting and saw more action on the Eastern Front in the spring of 1945. Rebane had a reputation for tactical skill.[5] With most of the Estonian forces captured by the Soviet Army in Czechoslovakia, Rebane managed to reach the British Occupation Zone with a number of his men at the end of the war.[4] Soldiers who fought in units under his command were colloquially referred to as “fox cubs” (Rebane translates to “fox” in Estonian).”
Note please that “in 1940 the Soviets arrested and executed the entire Estonian high command” and that nowhere in the article is it claimed that Rebane committed war crimes. Unlike the Red Army in Katyn and of course in murdering “the entire Estonian high command”.
Perhaps also worth noting that in 1940 the Soviet Union under far less threat signed up for a military pact with the Nazis and conducted an unprovoked invasion and occupation of Eastern Poland and the Baltics.
Presumably that was justified by military necessity?
Why then was Reban’s collaboration not also so justified?
thanks for letting us know the latest from wikipedia, which is a font of propaganda now. did you stand in front of your tv set and applaud the geriatric nazi?
JK redux
thx.
I am not an expert on the Baltic states.
Its complex matter (or: is it?)
some detours following, sry:
The SS was defined as a criminal organisation as a whole in 1950 by the Nuremberg Trials.
This, I assume also, as to make “complex” less complex for future court rulings.
Complex meaning: 1 mio. soldiers being part of the SS.
The good deeds, or neutral deeds of a few thereof could not redeem the entire SS. You can´t distinguish 1 mio. individual cases.
This was simply the ruling: The SS was a criminal organisation responsible for some of the worst crimes in the 20th century. And has been regarded so since.
This I guess is the most likely reason for the above quotation by me, not pointing out what you wrote.
In Germany if matters concern SS people will not immediately follow with a „but“.
I think this practice is not necessarily a bad one by design. Some big issues one ought to agree on before otherwise communication about almost anything will be extremely difficult.
Nuremberg additionally exempted soldiers who were drafted into SS against their will.
Furthermore it is said:
“(…)Subsequently the US Displaced Persons Commission in September 1950 declared that: The Baltic Waffen SS Units (Baltic Legions) are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the Government of the United States.(…)”
I don’t know the exact source of the comment. Whether its an individual´s view or the verbatim official courts verdict.
But remarkable are the last words: „not hostile to the US.” That already offers a hint what it is about.
The Displaced Persons Commissions: It is well known the DP-Camps to be harbouring countless Fascists or simply people who hated Russians for whatever reason. This was not a cause for contempt/neglect by US immigration offices but regarded as a treat.
Which is all due to the fact that by 1950 the Cold War was already in full swing.
Truman had already installed the National Security Council. The biggest US defense budget rise to date had been completed. The US had Hundreds of nukes. Plans for destroying China and the USSR had been worked out. And eventually the Truman administration had already fabricated an anti-Soviet War Scare in 1948 that had swept across the US and Western Europe.(to save US arms manufacturers among other reasons.)
I merely mention these background facts to stress that any ruling or views expressed in these matters by 1950 were overshadowed by the political agenda they would serve – irrationality of the war against the USSR.
Since you mention it: neither have I found proof for Rebane taking part in actions that would qualify as atrocities.
If this is indeed correct or if there are matters that are not reported for whatever reason I don’t know. But so far even the Jewish papers hadn´t mentioned anything, including the Wiesenthal Centre, which I have some major contentions with. But that doesn’t belong here.
However Rebane WAS SS-Standartenführer. That’s not nothing. The Skull on his SS-uniform is not there by accident. Survivors after WWII would shiver in terror regarding that skull.
In Germany if you had been a Standartenführer you wouldn´t admit in public unless you thought the Nazis did some good stuff. Many people did so after 1945. But those are ancient times. (Or so I thought until the sea change of the recent years.)
But there should be no misunderstanding. SS was one of the major forces of terror Hitler based his dictatorship on.
That’s the bottom-line. And that’s the bottom-line of public judgement.
I am only about to understand the imperialist nature of the aristocracy of Poland of the 19th and early 20th century.
Naturally as a former student of the German school system I am not good with incriminating knowledge about Polish policies before and during WWII.
For the average German Poles were always victims.
But it is known that the Poles were heavily involved into anti-semitic campaigns which shouldn´t surprise as Poland is a Catholic country.
Additionally the Poles – others here will know much better – were not willing to agree on any anti-German alliance with the Russians.
Neither were the Brits and the French willing to do so. Stalin eventually had no alternative but deal with Hitler directly.
Canadian historian Jabara Carley has dedicated his life´s scholarship to this topic. I have just started reading. Again others here are better with Carley.
Keep in mind: The Russian population after the German offensives in WWI suffered 3-4 mio. people dead + after the attacks 1919-1920 by the expeditionary forces from the West and the White Russians in the Civil War, the entire RU population lost another 7-10 mio. human beings mostly citizens, of course on all sides of the political divide.
With all the other stuff (economic isolation by the West etc.) Stalin naturally attempted to somehow create a security structure, which he failed in doing. (Why, is the subject of Carley´s trilogy in the making, I think.)
Eventually the USSR tried to get to terms with Nazi-Germany which both sides knew would only grant them a little breathing time.
Geoffrey Roberts has written extensively on this too.
Yet already I have learned in school that the Hitler-Stalin-Pact and its so-called “secret addendum” re: Poland´s partition, was for the “greater good” from Stalin´s POV at least.
The Russians as said had no reason to trust the Poles would support them or be neutral in a war. They were no peacenicks. No nation in that region I assume was particularly peaceful.
Which is no apology for Katyn or any crime, naturally.
I never would argue, especially the USSR under Stalin was a Garden Eden. But to get into that greater picture would carry me even further off.
To the murder of the Estonian elites I cant give any background assessment. If it was a repetition of the Katyn massacre or something completely different. I dont know.
As I said, for me many more dark spots are on this uncharted map than known ones.
There were Western and Eastern Galicia and the territories changed hands many times.
At the end of the victory over Nazism, the Poles not only got rid of the OUN, but also the Ukrainian population in those territories. Mass deportation was carried out (good, correct, democratic Polish deportation, no resemblance to the terrible bloody Russian deportations). According to Wiki, Operation Vistula resettled 137,833 people in the best
Stalinistdemocratic tradition, 24-48 hours to gather belongings to eradicate all remaining Ukrainians, and even mixed Polish-Ukrainian families were affected.In Czechoslovakia, Action “B” was carried out in parallel, intercepting detachments of Ukrainian nationalists who were trying to break into the American occupation zone in Austria.
Now the descendants of those Ukrainian nationalists who found refuge in the USA and Canada are revising history, whitewashing their ancestors. With a full set of cliches – ethnic cleansing, injustice, oppressive regimes, etc. I call this “militant self-victimization,” and in Russia there is a short and colorful definition of this behaviour – “Why us?”
It comes from a joke:
– Peter, look, two guys are walking down the street. I suggest we go up and give them a good beating.
– But Vasily, what if they beat us?
– Hey! Why the hell would they suddenly want to beat us?
This means that when someone screams like a bitch about injustice, it makes sense to look a little deeper into history and perhaps discover the reasons for such injustice. Slightly more logical and realistic reasons than “he’s just an evil bad guy.”
Ex-Galizia in modern Ukraine are Lvov, Ternopol, Ivano-Frankovsk and there are a lot of evidence they demolish monuments to the victory over Nazism, making monuments to collaborators, glorifying them as national heroes.
Look, here is how Ukrainian conflict might have been settled back in 2014.
“Nagorno-Karabakh will cease to exist on January 1, 2024 – this decree was signed by the president of the unrecognized republic Samvel Shahramanyan, the Karabakh information headquarters reported.
‘A decision has been made: to dissolve all state institutions and organizations under their departmental subordination until January 1, 2024, and the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) ceases to exist’ the decree says.
The document emphasizes that this is being done based on the priority of ensuring the physical security and vital interests of the people of Karabakh and taking into account the agreement with Azerbaijan reached through the mediation of Russian peacekeepers. In accordance with it, all residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, including military personnel who have laid down their arms, are provided with free, voluntary and unhindered passage along the Lachin corridor.
The population of Nagorno-Karabakh, including those outside its borders, are invited to familiarize themselves with the conditions of reintegration that Azerbaijan will provide in order to independently decide in the future on the possibility of remaining in the region”
https://ria.ru/20230928/karabakh-1899099231.html
Tatyana,
The Nagorno-Karabakh dispute may appear to bear broad comparison with the Ukraine dispute/war yet the situation on the ground makes for significant points of departure:-
i) Azerbaijan retook the Nagorno-Karabakh region by force.
ii) The Armenian government seems not to have supported the Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh.
iii) Unlikely, at this stage, that the people of Russian ethnicity are voluntarily going to vacate the place they reside in and call ‘home’ in the east of Ukraine.
iv) The administrative/governmental leadership in Ukraine and Russia remain in a condition of daggers drawn, with no resolutive process afoot save and except a resolution via results of war.
What equivalent dissolution is there likely to be in the east of Ukraine? Geographical split – yes; voluntary agreement on the Ukrainian side – no.
My views – and what say you?
Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett.
I read recently that Saudi Arabia will step in and use force to keep the peace if hostilities break out again; hopefully that course of action won’t be needed.
@Courtenay, do you not get irony or what?
One similarity is US meddling in 2014 (sending a warship ostensibly to evacuate US Olympians from Sochi if necessary, then backing the Kiev-okayed and Kolomoisky-paid Nazi shelling of the Donetsk and Lugansk regions) and US meddling in Armenia in 2023 (stitching Armenia up like a kipper so that they simply couldn’t respond militarily to the blitzkrieg mounted by Is****i-armed Azerbaijan – quite an achievement, and done much more cleanly than e.g. “regime change” in Libya).
As for your point iii), you seem unaware that since February last year many Russians have already fled their homes in the Donbas, going to territory that was part of Russia prior to the accessions of the DPR, LPR, Kherson, and Zaporozhye. These are the people whom some pro-US propagandists are calling large numbers of innocent Ukrainians deported at gunpoint by wicked Russian “orcs”. This lie only has traction among those who don’t have a clue about how people from that part of the world see themselves ethnically.
This is inaccurate, Courtenay. Don’t forget that Armenia ethnically cleansed the Azerbaijanis from Nagorno-Karabakh and large surrounding areas in 1991 *by force* (if you hadn’t realised). The ethnic Armenians in NK are only complaining about the consequences of what they themselves have done.
Yeah, this is the snag when you want to be all dualistic and need to know who are the good guys you should be supporting and who are the bad guys you should be hating, sometimes both sides can be the bad guys. “A plague on both your houses!”.
I believe the Nagorno war to great extent came about because of the relationship between Armenia and Russia in past years: Armenia decided to somewhat end the tight relations that they had with Russia and Russia accepted the departure; that in turn made Azerbaijan more tough in their posture, knowing that Russia would do nothing if they decided to fight a war with Armenia, Nagorno-Karabach. I do not understand this sudden shift by Armenia.
Armenian leader ‘making huge mistake’ – Moscow
It is Yerevan’s “inconsistent” and “irresponsible” approach that has led to the escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said
https://swentr.site/russia/583550-armenian-leader-huge-mistake-moscow/
The other day Armenia even invited Samantha Power
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230925/usaid-chief-power-visits-armenia-highlights-pashinyans-ticklish-position-1113667619.html
Same Samantha Power’s meddling in Bosnia now at the moment too:
West blasts Balkan region’s plan to replicate US law
USAID head Samantha Power joined the chorus, accusing Dodik of “trying to pass Kremlin-inspired draft laws that rob residents of their basic rights, silence dissent and allow corruption to flourish unchecked.”
https://swentr.site/news/572910-fara-bosnia-embassy-opposed/
And regarding Azerbaijan and Nagorno … where are the “full scale invasion”, “unprovoked” labeling now, huh? Why are not the Nagorno getting any NLAW rocket launchers?
“I do not understand this sudden shift by Armenia.”
America runs a huge embassy in Armenia. I wonder what they do all day.
Yes, Armenia quickly driting toward the americans now, what a disgrace:
Kremlin blasts ‘extremely hostile’ move by treaty ally
Armenia is progressing with a plan to empower the ICC on its soil, the court that seeks the arrest of Vladimir Putin
https://swentr.site/russia/583711-kremlin-armenia-rome-satute/
Interesting news I saw recently on ICC: Russia put several judges on “wanted’ list (or, what is correct word for it) including Mr. Peter Hofmansky, a Polish judge who is currrently the president of the ICC.
The ICC issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Lvova-Belova, the Children’s Ombudsman. Accusation of illegal deportation of Ukrainian children. Lvova-Belova said that she did not receive either the ICC arrest warrant or the text of the document, did not understand how the accusation was built, did not talk to any of the ICC representatives, but only learned about it from the media.
My guess is that ICC did what Twitter and Facebook did – simply satisfied Ukrainian claim, with no checking or any investigation.
Another case:
a letter was sent to Katherine Russell from Unicef regarding bullying in Latvia – in kindergarten, teachers forced a girl to squat 10 times for each spoken Russian word.
Considering that in Latvia 40% of the population is Russian-speaking, I hope that the matter will gain public resonance.
I told you, Russians are the new Jews today.
Tatyana
Yes, baltics are one weird region, I have no problem if some of them dislike Russia, freedom of speech/thought whatever… but it does not stop there, there is racism going on against human beings just because they are of russian descent or speak russian. A couple of weeks back there was a video clip that went viral of a russian boy in Latvia being beaten and humiliated just because he was russian. Media, politicans are at fault egging this hatred on.
When US invaded Iraq people disliked the US government – not the american people. But when Russia is involved in a war suddenly it is ok to discriminate against anyone being an ethnic russian? Why?? Why is this accepted? West are so simple minded, so much for the anti-racist ideology they claim to represent.
Yes it is an utter disgrace. I suspect the c***s in the elite in Yerevan who’ve taken US money to let Azerbaijan seize NK and expel its population are going to get some trouble from the victims of their treachery. They’re hardly in a position to win their hearts and minds, however many biscuits they hand out in the refugee camps. Perhaps in the not too distant future it will be helicopter skids in Saigon time for them.
Curiously there’s not much talk in the western media including internet forums of what weapons the Azerbaijanis used. There are many bores who are into that kind of stuff, but in this case it would be very interesting to know. This has certainly been a very effectively carried out operation, unlike certain other recent military operations one can think of.
T Rebel
The latest event was the explosion at a gas storage facility, with 68 killed. People spread rumors it was done purposely to kill those leaving the area, on their stop to buy fuel for their transport.
Unfortunately, Armenia have not claimed Karabakh to be their territory, their government recognised it to be legally Aseri land. So, those Armenians who lived there found themselves hostage, I guess.
65 thousand are reported to leave the area by now, and I do hope with all my heart that people in that region really found the compromise. Wish them all to be well
Jack, I sometimes think about those, pardon the expression, stupid bitches who fanned this hatred. These lamentations of ‘oh my poor ancestors, They were treated unfairly. They actually were good guys. You must understand their motives. Well, today I, as an heir, would like to receive compensation.’
When I see what’s happening today, I think ‘Look at that Russian kindergarten girl squatting, bitch. Is this what you wanted? Are you happy now?’
It’s also worth remembering that the government of Latvia that disenfranchised much of the country’s ethnic Russian population was welcomed with open arms into the EU in 2004, funnily enough the same year they joined NATO.
Tatyana
Yes many in the Baltics talk about soviet occupation, they never talk about their participation in the holocaust alongside Nazi Germany.
Do you have a link to the squatting-case, sounds senseless but not surprising for the Baltics.
Jack
here is the journalist Aleksey Stephanov:
“A little girl comes to kindergarten and addresses another girl in Russian. As a result, the teacher forces her to squat ten times for every Russian word spoken”
Aleksey says he cannot name the teachers or the kindergarten until the end of the investigation, but will make it known, for sure
https://m.vk.com/video-40316705_456422092?list=93c2ccdd4a4917fff9&from=wall-40316705_50233509
here is the ‘Arguments and Facts’ reporting:
“A girl in a kindergarten in the Latvian city of Jelgava was forced to squat ten times for each word in Russian.
Deputy of the city parliament Andrei Pagor reported this in his official Telegram channel.”
http://mirtesen.aif.ru/blog/43752452487/V-detskom-sadu-v-Latvii-devochku-zastavlyali-prisedat-za-russkie?utm_referrer=mirtesen.ru
I learned the story from RIA:
“the project ‘Russians’ of the Student Youth Foundation sent an appeal to UNICEF Executive Director Katherine Russell, the document is available at RIA”
https://ria.ru/20230928/latviya-1899265469.html
—
I hope someone of Western journalists get interested in the story and may want to contact any of the above mentioned people for details.
Thanks for the links, I will look into this.
Unfortunately the west could not care less, the only racism that is OK in the west are against russians. You could scream into a microphone in a public square and speak demeaning, slanderous against, note not Russia, but russians and there will be no legal repercussions. Just change word russians to jews, gypsies, arabs etc and you will face jail. Racism against russians are unfortunately so ingrained in the western-european psyche, normalized.
@Jack – ” the only racism that is OK in the west are against russians.”
Not so. J/*ish racism against everyone else and the Palestinians in particular is something that is simply not allowed to be mentioned in Britain by anyone who wants to be accepted as respectable.
This may possibly (but probably won’t) become more apparent to at least some people when those flags that often hang from public buildings in Britain, and across the street, showing different coloured stripes in recognition of each of many different kinds of minority and extreme-minority sexual behaviours and identities, gender dysphoria, etc., start making space for a little star in their designs, just to show solidarity y’know. (Remember: you read this prediction here first.)
Quite aside from the above, you are about to see the most racist Tory election campaign in living memory – all couched in hypocritical “Racist? Us?? Whatever do you mean, you wokefaced liberal loon!” terms
Tatyana,
I share this relative to one of your main points of concern.
Although Jimmy Dore earlier on was well known as a comedian, there is no joking here in what he quite credibly states to one of the world’s highest fora – the UN Security Council:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPvFs86kVps
Thank you, Courtenay Francis Raymond Barnett, I watched it and also added to my YouTube playlist “hurts to see what’s going on’, hope people check it from time to time.
Also, thanks for the previous link, to the article by Chris Hedges. I’m ashamed to say, there’re so many letters there combined in too long phrases, I felt hopeless to read it through. I wish you could give your own summary of the article every time you share a link. Really, very hard to wade through the thicket of other people’s words, forced to constantly decipher the meaning from another language and still not understanding even half of the allusions and realities. (Please don’t be fooled by my seemingly good command of the language – much of this impression is due to Google Translate.)
Tatyana,
Indeed, I agree with you and a summary can and does help. So, here goes:-
PEACE!
https://informationclearinghouse.blog/2023/09/28/a-global-call-for-peace-in-ukraine-emerges-at-un-general-assembly/
So the army could soon be policing the streets in Stockholm (gang warfare) as well as London (armed police downing tools in protest against judiciary).
Where else is on the list? The Netherlands? Italy? France? Could be any other NATO countries really.
Write-ups in the FT (that’s when you know it’s serious):
https://archive.ph/SXOZn (Sweden)
https://archive.ph/dTfNs (London)
The Brit media are saying the cops’ protest is “waning”. Let’s see what happens next week if the judge allows their comrade who stands accused of murdering an unarmed black British man to be publicly named.
Rota’s invitation is just an example of modern wokeness. Trudeau’s pathetic apology is just an example of what modern wokes do when they are caught out. Neither example has anything to do with world war 2 realities or their aftermath. Both are delusional as was of course the response of the whole of the Canadian parliament and of Zelenski.
Government leaders in countries that were on the victorious side in a war that ended 78 years ago still ritually cleanse themselves with reference to crimes that were committed during that war by some who were on the losing side.
What an absurd spectacle of extreme hypocrisy.
Yes yes, Justin, you’re as clean as a f***ing whistle.
More grist to the mill, oh Canada …
https://sputnikglobe.com/20230928/nazi-hunter-steven-rambam-trudeau-knew-he-applauded-a-monster-1113775972.html
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On the contrary Nazis are the full realisation of “anti woke”. The most “anti woke” it is possible to be. If your self-identity is all about being “anti woke” then Nazis are your crème de la crème. They also have everything to do with WW2 realities and, in Canada, the aftermath.
I’d say the opposite. Nazis are all about how separate and superior one particular group is (in this case white Aryans) and how dispensable and inferior all others are. That’s very woke – to insist on the superiority of the individual and their rights regardless of everyone else. The opposite is to respect humanity as a whole and to promote community values that protect and nurture all, not just the “special” ones.
Bramble, you actually agree, Nazis are ‘anti-woke’ as Joel states.
“Woke – aware of and actively attentive to important societal facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)”
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/woke
Modern reality is so weird. Have you ever seen a Nazi transgender?
Cirillo pranked by popular Russian pranksters Vovan&Lexus, they pretended to be ‘Poroshenko’. Wyatt Reed kindly posts the text, video is also available
https://twitter.com/wyattreed13/status/1707004495824027818
– Russians are not European… Russians are Asian. Ultimately they do come from the Mongols, they come from a grouping of people who want to be slaves.
– I wish the rest of Europe and the Western world understood that we are protecting European values and Western values… These people [Russians] are not human. They are enemies of humanity.
– Claims Dugin’s daughter “wasn’t some woman who accidentally killed. This was an evil creature who died a death they deserved.”
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I personally never guessed I come from Mongols 🙂 Even if so, well, I don’t mind. Mongols are great guys. But am I a human? Do I want to be a slave? And the most important, how do I contact the dealer who sells such crazy stuff?
The whole Prank with Sarah Ashton-Chirillo video is on Rumble, in English
https://rumble.com/v3l7ys7-prank-with-sarah-ashton-chirillo.html
it’s odd that a people who “want to be slaves” conquered much of the world at the time. Their empire lasted longer than Alexander’s.
Pretzelattack
I believe that in countries involved in colonial relations in the past, people are accustomed to thinking in the ‘master/slave’ paradigm.
My country tried to build socialism and believed that it was going through a preliminary stage – communism.
I know that this word has become dirty in the West, but I will try to explain that it was understood here as a society without classes (social strata). More specifically, my country tried to stop the inheritance of privileges, i.e. in new generations, citizens were to become equal and no one was to have privileges by birth, but only rewards according to their own achievements.
One of the methods of moving towards such a ‘society of equals’ was the absence of private ownership of production facilities. That is, plants, factories, farmlands, etc. could only belong to the state. I believe that this was the main subject of criticism towards communism from countries with a capitalist system and with property stratification.
But over the 70 years of the existence of the USSR, people have grown up (me also) in whose mentality the concepts of ‘master/slave’ are not innate.
Only relatively recently, with the end of communism, linguistic nominators of social strata began to appear, such as ‘gospodin’, an analogue of your ‘Mister’, which came from ‘Master’, or ‘Sir’, which came from ‘Senior’. As far as I know, these signs of hierarchy have never disappeared in your countries, and as far as I can hear, Cirillo actively uses it.
I was raised in the US, during the 1950’s and 1960’s, in a social milieu saturated with anti communist propaganda. Communism was regarded as a kind of virus, and the only protection was regular booster shots of more propaganda, as the wise and benevolent Uncle Sam tried to help the lesser peoples of the world by teaching them how to practice capitalism and fend off the evil Russians and Chinese who only wanted to tyrannize the world. The scales began falling from my eyes with the rise of the Civil Rights movement and the devastation wrought by the Vietnam War. I don’t know much about Marxist theory, but I look at how capitalism has metastasized in the US into a devouring cancer, destroying our values and corrupting our government, and I see how much damage the US version of it has done around the world, and I am ashamed of my country.
Dear Tatyana and pretzel
You misunderstood what and when communism will come.
WE were socialist countries ruled by communist parties with different approach how to get to communism.
There is no recipe for “socialism”. It is transition from Capitalism to communism. Marx predicted that most industrially developed countries USA and Britain will transition to socialism.
No offense to Russia but they went from feudalism to socialism and many of us from poor developed countries to socialism with different approach.
Way of doing it was very different in Soviet Union, China, Albania, Yugoslavia etc.
China is still run by evil communists but not claiming to be Communist!
The claim that Communism has failed is bollox.
On a depressing side, communism might just be around the corner.
After nuclear war some primitive tribe (community) might survive and keep communism alive. Oh yea, I personally believe that socialism was good and we tried our best but everything was done to undermine the progress.
Pretzelattack
I believe that the roots of this phenomenon go back to the 19th century and beyond. You might be interested in reading about the Congrès de Vienne – in short, in the early 19th century, the monarchies of Europe including Russia, since all monarchs were relatives to varying degrees made an agreement aimed at maintaining a feudal-absolutist form of monarchical rule.
This was done because of the French Revolution, and after the Napoleonic Wars. In short, the purpose of the agreement was that the monarchs agreed to help each other in opposing revolutionary ideas, and in preserving the borders of countries and the power of monarchs.
It was the European Concert System of international relations, with classical diplomacy, collective security, and the concept of “great powers”, you may google for La Sainte-Alliance. This lasted until the 1st World War, which coincided with the revolution in my country, when the monarchy was destroyed here.
This caused a wave of criticism from the monarchies towards communism and everything Russian in general. And it influenced the fact that Nazi ideologists included Russians in the list of peoples for enslavement and destruction. The roots of German Nazism originated in British philosophical circles by the way.
Well, Cirillo simply directly retells Nazi propaganda, compare:
‘When you, my friends, fight in the East, you continue the same struggle against the same subhumanity, against the same inferior races that once fought under the name of the Huns, later – 1000 years ago in the time of Kings Henry and Otto I – under under the name of the Hungarians, and subsequently under the name of the Tatars; then they appeared again under the name of Genghis Khan and the Mongols. Today they are called Russians under the political banner of Bolshevism.’
— Speech by Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler in Stettin on July 13, 1941
I copied it from Russian Wiki and put through Google Translate. Wiki refers to the original in German: Der Reichsführer SS zu den Ersatzmannschaften für die Kampfgruppe «Nord» am Sonntag dem 13. Juli 1941, in Stettin. Цит. по: Stein H. George. The Waffen SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945. Ithaca (N. Y.): Cornell University Press, 1984. — P. 126—127.
It is interesting to see ownership % of home’s around the world.🙂 Ex Socialist countries 90%+ .
I am happy that free market economy has arrived in our countries. BMW’s and people looking for food in a rubbish container.
Pretzel
You grow up in 50/60 in the period of racial segregation and we commies were bad guys and your country was leader of the free World 🤣
Also, if I’m allowed to remind you of the difference in how ‘we’ and ‘you’ judge the WW2. In ‘your’ information space the story of Jews as main victims prevails. On this Ukraine builds its propaganda, like they say ‘we cannot be nazis, our president is a jew’. Or, like Canadian PM may say he is sorry and apologize to the Jewish community.
In ‘our’ information environment, things are a little different. Without minimizing the victims of the Holocaust, we remember our own losses, too.
Here what Wiki has on this:
As Simon Wiesenthal, a survivor of Auschwitz, long ago observed, «The Holocaust was not only a matter of the killing of six million Jews. It involved the killing of eleven million people, six million of whom were Jews.»
Wiesenthal spoke on the basis of what was then the best available evidence. Today, some 50 years later, the only correction to be made to his statement lies in the fact that we now believe his estimate of 11 million was far too low.
The true human costs of Nazi genocide may come to 26 million or more, 5 to 6 million of whom were Jews, a half million to a million or more of whom were Gipsies, and the rest mostly Slavs. Only with these facts clearly in mind can we comprehend the full scope of the Holocaust and its real implications.»
Encyclopedia of Genocide p176
Diplomacy towards the USSR of the leading western states, which is to say the USA, Britain, and France, had its ups and downs from 1917 and then the civil war onwards. It’s still having them now. In fact it had them before 1917 too. Reactionary Russia was an ally of reactionary Britain against revolutionary France and then its opponent in the Crimean war, etc. etc.
Concentrating on the “Soviet” period that everyone talks about: at no time was diplomacy principally to do with ideology. It never is. (If anyone is confused about this, please consider western policy towards Saudi Arabia and Is***l.) Ideology changed as a secondary matter. For example in the early 1940s the Comintern was shut down as the USSR helped form the United Nations in New York and, whaddayaknow, the CPSU line changed to yes, the law of value does operate in the USSR, as got written up in the New York Times. Until then the USSR had no national anthem – it used the Internationale. This was the epoch when the Soviet government was being offered Marshall aid by Wall Street.
Going back now to 1917-18, initially the main issue was the withdrawal of recognition of the rights of western shareowners. This was a case of “you stole our money, you b*stards!” – a shout that was heard especially loudly in France. Fast forward to 1934 and the USSR was welcomed into the League of Nations as Germany left.
The “cold war” that lasted from 1948 to say the 1960s was mostly about weapons contracts. (It didn’t last until 1991 – that’s just idiotic talk by people who probably couldn’t even spell “détente” let alone tell you anything about it.) Between say 1934 and the end of the 20th century there was about as much western investment in the USSR as you might expect, given geographical realities, given state support in the poorer country for internal development, and given state support in the richer countries for protecting and leveraging their temporary advantage in infotech.
For example there was a lot of western involvement in car and chemical industries.
The fear at the Daily Mail and in high Tory “get back to Russia” circles wasn’t of the USSR or Russia; it was of the working class. Racism and xenophobia towards Russia was whipped up because racism and xenophobia work, and because the last thing that was wanted among the petty bourgeoisie and much of the bourgeoisie itself was the firing of neurons. Change a few things and it could have been China, Africa, Arabia, or South America that it was all aimed at.
The Bolsheviks weren’t communist in any way, shape, or form. Lenin and Trotsky for example were waited on by servants, there was “one-man management” in factories, the first decree the new government issued in 1917 told the workers to get back to work under the old owners, and I could go on. The influence of the Leninists in what got called the USSR in 1922 over workers’ movements in western Europe was negative – for example in Britain in 1921 it was a matter of shut up and stop striking because we’re trying to get a trade agreement. Was there opposition to this in the international communist movement? You betcha! But it’s just been written out of most “histories”.
Bramble – you need to sort your thoughts out, my friend. Believing in the superiority of one particular group isn’t insisting on the superiority of the individual. The Nazis, Fascists, and Ustashists etc. were collectivist. They were not individualist.
Which isn’t to say that’s the whole of the story. If you want to get to grips with how racist “theorists” view the individual, look at their “evolutionary psychology” beliefs.
Nowadays we’ve got state despotism (pretty clear since 2020) AND the psychotic ideology that portrays carrying a smartphone as something to do with the power and freedom of the individual when it’s anything but. It’s not going to be pretty, not at all. It really is NOT.
“Rota’s invitation is just an example of modern wokeness.”
This is like a bottomless pit of ambiguity. What do you understand by ‘wokeness’ and how does it relate to old nazis?
Is it something to do with sealioning on the internet?
yet another followup by Max Blumenthal on the continuing revelations provided by the Ovation.
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/09/28/nazigate-canadas-general-ukrainian-waffen-ss/
really good examination of how Canadians taught the Azov Batalion how to make sausage of themselves in the counteroffensive, and the touching emotional bonds that developed between the professors and their students.
All those neolib politicians knew they were applauding a reallife Nazi. Zelensky himself punched the air right after the Speaker said Hunka had “fought the Russians during World War Two”. He knows as well as anyone what the Nazis did to Ukrainian Jewry. By saluting the SS he is spitting into those pits full of his murdered kinsmen and women, just to cling on a little longer to personal power and fortune. The guy is the very worst of the worst.
yeah the general is the only honest one so far. this attitude of “we fought the wrong war in world war 2” is also a minority opinion in the US; there was and is some sentiment that the US should have allied with Germany and gone to war with Russia. but to a majority of americans, the Ovation will still be troubling, and maybe thought provoking.
Hopefully so.
A good discussion of Nazigate here by the inimitable Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate, who see it as vindication of what they have been reporting since 2014.
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1707820812953334140?s=20
Sorry everyone
but IMO it wasn’t a blunder!
They are stupid but not that stupid.
To my understanding they just apologized to Jewish community and not to millions dead fighting Nazis.
Zelenski didn’t say anything yet!
Message is simple: “Free World, Nazis and Zionist stand together against Russia”. (It’s not the first time Zionist collaborate with the Nazis). Sorry but there are good Jews and bad ones like the rest of us.
Zionism in the sense of the organisation (organisations can do stuff, ideologies can’t) has NOT taken a public stand against Russia in this war. Zelensky can say what he likes, but it hasn’t.
I/**el, for example, one of the main planks of the said organisation, offered to mediate between Russia and Ukraine but unsurprisingly their offer wasn’t taken up.
It is interesting that Dniepro (Dniepropetrovsk) hasn’t been shelled much during this war. Indeed neither has Odessa relative to several other cities.
(Edit: the Menorah Centre in that city is said by some to be the biggest J/*ish cultural centre in the world.)
Also it was pretty clear that some of the foreign combatants holed up in the Azovstal steel plant were I/s**eli, and we haven’t heard much about that since, have we?
What kind of deal was done? Well who can say?
It’s true that Putin was made to kiss I/**eli jackboot after Lavrov mentioned that some J/*s cooperated with the German Nazis during WW2. Lavrov was 100% right about that. His reference to Hitler having J/*ish blood, though, was another matter, and the notion is probably false. That reference was stupid. The correct response is who cares who Adolf Hitler’s grandmother conceived his father with. Perhaps she was “a bit of a slapper” or “no better than she ought to have been”. Who cares? If anyone wants to find a more interesting issue, they might look at mass murderer Adolf Eichmann’s background and ask about the German Templars in Jerusalem and how he became fluent in both Yiddish and Hebrew.
Just to clarify: I mean the Menorah Centre in Dniepro. I wasn’t referring to Odessa. This place:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/giant-22-story-ukraine-jcc-provides-refuge-in-style/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah_center,_Dnipro
Pigeon English
September 29, 2023 at 19:21
Dear Tatyana and pretzel
I have no idea why you are replying to me; I didn’t say anything at all about “communism failed”, or how it might come about. and yes I knew I grew up during a period of segregation and communists being the bad guys — because I told you that. newsflash, there is still a lot of de facto segregation (see “redlining”), and communists are still the “bad guys”. not sure why you find this funny, as 100 years of anti-communist and anti-Russia propaganda have paved the way for mindless voter support for the war in Ukraine, in addition to most of the other proxy wars and direct invasions by the US over the last 80 years or so.
Pretzel
I was just sharing my thoughts with Tatyana and you.
I agree with 99% of your comments over the years and I believed you would take it as information and paradox and not criticism or attack. Sorry!
Ps it is not you having dogmatic Ideas I was referring to. It’s just general dogma
I just realized that sometimes posts are few minutes apart 🤣and can create confusion.
It’s okay, Pretzelattack. I think we reacted unconsciously. It’s like old ladies sitting on a bench and someone passing by saying, “Hi, how are you?” and the elderly ladies begin to tell in detail how they are doing 🙂 Since there are free ears attached to a polite interlocutor.
RE. Russian wikipedia: the majority of texts about RUSSIA are written and edited in Ukraine (!),to a lesser degree in Germany, Canada … Thomas Röper, anti-spiegel, did do research on this.
Who is We ?
You and pretzel or
you and I? 🙂
since US Senator Feinstein died (The film “The Report” granted her far more integrity than she in fact did have, like below piece – but what is a fox among hyaenas)
this 2015 New Yorker piece on her and the CIA:
“The Inside War
To expose torture, Dianne Feinstein fought the C.I.A.—and the White House.”
By Connie Bruck
June 15, 2015
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/06/22/the-inside-war
and this, indirectly connected but since the US election hasn´t been mentioned for a couple of months,
interview with Sarah Posner by Robert Wright fom NonZero on Biden, Trump and the election with a different view.
We dont have to agree but to keeping an open mind is essential:
“Is a Second Trump Administration in the Cards? (Robert Wright & Sarah Posner)”
https://nonzero.substack.com/p/early-access-is-a-second-trump-administration#details
T rebel So “the Bolshevics wernt comunists in any way, shape, or form” and to think that I spent all that time reading about their initial economic policy known as war communism, its failure, and the subsequent adoption of the N.E.P. What a waste of effort, thank you for putting me right.
Btw did you know that when Stalin died it was found that the only things that he actually owned were his old clothes, nothing else.
Yep didn’t own a sod. That is the true reason why they hate him and are so desperate to bury his ideology. The USSR’s heretical existence is also a major explanation for the residual, virulent Russophobia. That brief challenge to their greed will never be forgotten or forgiven.
I saw this powerful wake up call to ordinary people who like to identify with western elites and defend and justify them. It demands that they eschew the propaganda and start thinking straight. This guy is reminiscent of Malcom X.
https://x.com/DanielDumbrill/status/1707312709782716795?s=20
Apart from 20 or so dachas in various parts of the country, all staffed with a small army of servants and guards, and a fleet of heavily armoured limos to get to them.
https://hum54-15.omeka.fas.harvard.edu/exhibits/show/russian_dacha/joseph-stalin-s-dacha–the-ric
Or perhaps they just belonged to the state, and you’re personalising the ownership, in the way you say ‘Putin’ and not ‘Russia’, just to make it seem like a dictatorial whimsy.
When the Bolsheviks overthrew the Kronstadt mutineers in 1921, they betrayed everything that they believed in to keep control of the state.
J Arther Nast
Re Stalin having no personal property at the time of his death.
If you have absolute power over the people of the USSR, you don’t need personal property.
i.e. like Charlie Windsor and his ancestors.
Laguerre
Does C3 really have absolute power over people in England?
No, none at all; but even if he did it’s irrelevant. Communism was supposed to offer a different, better way, an end to private property and class and eventually money and the state itself. What people got instead was authoritarian rule by an elite who lived in luxury whilst millions died of starvation or of maltreatment in Gulags.
No PM
We are transitioning towards comunisam. Some of us were in Socialism. You can declare yourself komunist or Democracy but….,! NO COUNTRY ever claimed to be a communist. Communist party will lead from Capitalism over socialism to Comunisam.
Yes well that’s an old argument. ‘We’re not communist yet but when we are things will be so wonderful you’ll realise it was worth the pain.’ Absolute tosh and no country has ever got anywhere near.
“Communism was supposed to offer a different, better way, an end to private property and class and eventually money and the state itself. What people got instead was authoritarian rule by an elite who lived in luxury whilst millions died of starvation or of maltreatment in Gulags.”
I agree with this assessment.
The idea was precisely to destroy the age-old system of social relations and build a new society where no one is born with a head start in the form of property or social status.
And although Pears emphasizes the negative, I will draw attention to the fact that millions of people have also gained access to what previously belonged only to the rich classes, that is, to the minority. I think nobody argues that the rich were the majority?
First of all I mean education, because the most of the pre-revolution population were illiterate. Could not read or write. My granny born in 1915 could not, she only could draw a cross as her personal signature, and this was ‘normal’ among many many millions of ordinary people, as their fate was to work hard all days until they die.
Free education for everyone, no payment, just come and study.
Then, medicine, normal medicine with doctors and hospitals. Education in sanitation and hygiene. Previously, women gave birth to 8-12 children and often less than half of them survived. Accessible medical care has become available. Women’s rights etc. Previously, women gave birth to 8-12 children and often less than half of them survived, and the rich minority hardly cared much.
Then, normalized working hours, like 8 hours a day, instead of 12-16, with guaranteed payment and retirement pension. Prohibition of child labor. Trade unions, maternity leave, healthcare, etc. etc.
I have seen various criticisms of the USSR, and somehow they are all one-sided. No one criticizes the pre-USSR elite for the state in which the mass population lived. Perhaps because the elites emigrated, so perhaps it’s them who are barking from abroad, angry for the loss of their property and privileged position?
I also think that the process of formation of new elites is inevitable. Here I again agree with Pears, by the end of that grandiose social experience, stable elites had formed in all spheres, and they made efforts to preserve and pass it on to their offspring.
It seems to me that the majority of people are not interested in being equal among equals, but they prefer to be in hierarchies and live through competition. This is probably some kind of innate feature of human nature, the eternal dream of every individual to be “better than others.”
I hope that someday humanity will find a good way of social organization.
—
On SS veteran in Canadian Parliament.
I offer a video by Mark Felton. “Ukrainian SS In Britain – Postwar SS-Galizien Division Refugees”
https://youtu.be/UB_Gs-0dhOo
The description to this video says:
“The largely unknown story of the first Ukrainian refugees in Britain – an entire SS division composed largely of Ukrainians who arrived in 1947, with many later emigrating to Canada – the 14th SS Galizien. Why did the British Government permit them to settle, and why are they today considered national heroes in Ukraine?”
In case someone intends to smear Mr. Felton, let me please copy here who he is:
“Dr. Mark Felton is a well-known British historian, the author of 22 non-fiction books, including bestsellers ‘Zero Night’ and ‘Castle of the Eagles’, both currently being developed into movies in Hollywood. In addition to writing, Mark also appears regularly in television documentaries around the world, including on The History Channel, Netflix, National Geographic, Quest, American Heroes Channel and RMC Decouverte. His books have formed the background to several TV and radio documentaries.”
Pears
It makes little sense to compare “Communist” Russia or China with “Capitalist” Europe and USA, as latter block was so much in the advantage at the early 20th century when the „experiment in Russia“ started. Russia was still stuck in the Middle Ages and China was a de facto colony untill 1949.
(see Tatyana above)
The areas of Eastern Europe Russia got at Potsdam were the economically weakest and least developed of Europe. Eastern Europe had been supplying raw material and labour and agricultural goods to the rich bases in the West for centuries. They were colonies.
The Russians, after 3 major wars between 1914 and 1945 and appr. 40 mio. people killed in that period, had the task to play catch-up big time. After 1945, additionally with nuclear weapons directed against them to possibly wipe them out.
The Gulags and the economic model were unrelated.
And if we are at it, while you had those Gulags in the East you had heads chopped off and people mass murdered and massacred in South America, throughout the Cold War. (Same in the US controlled Asia).
And did any of these economies fare better than Eastern Europe; I don´t think so. Eventually RU was transferring money to the East Europeans in quite a magnitude without making Capitalist gains from it. You could call them simply subsidies. On the other hand the Third World was depleted for the sake of rebuilding Western Europe.
Niger is the latest example on that list: Even though supplying France with some of the most valuable goods (uranium and gold) that country has no meaningful economy, wealth or educational status. And you can make that test almost with every single African country.
Places like Egypt that have always had the strength to at least rise up from time to time were crushed. What was the reason for Napoleon invading Egypt in 1798 and the British a few years later? Egypt intended to become a major contender to French and British trade interests as the Egyptians invested heavily into an army and into a powerful domestic cotton industry. But unlike Britain and France the Egyptians could actually grow the stuff at home. A major advantage naturally.
So they wouldn´t have to travel 5000 miles to suppress millions of people on another continent to rob them of their cotton after destroying the producer of the best cotton in the world, Bangladesh.
Or to quote Robert Clive, the first ruler of Bengal in 1757, Bangladesh´s capital Dacca was “extensive, populous, and rich as the city of London“. 100 years later that city of 150,000 had shrunk to 30,000 people. (I am not getting into the millions killed during the 200-year rule.)
So British and French cooperation regarding the degrading of Egyptian capabilities despite their own on-going war should be no surprise.
This is a pattern. Valid since.
(That’s like Mexico suddenly discovering vast raw oil reserves and starting to build up oil-trade independence from the US.)
Argentina or South Korea for instance were under tutelage of strict World Bank and IMF policies and acted as playing grounds for major companies like Siemens or former Dresdner Bank from Germany (Argentina) or Japanese Banks and IT (South Korea). Everything was done to obstruct their real economic independent development for decades.
Just yesterday an American court ordered – who the fuck are they? – Argentina to pay $16 billion to Burford Investment in compensation for renationalizing energy company Yacimentos Petrolíferos Fiscales.
It’s no news that the Global South today knows darn well its economic progress was virtually destroyed by our companies and governments.
That hasn´t anything to do with efficiency of the Capitalist system.
Besides: Just because the Politburo called that thing “Communism”, it doesn´t mean they really were Communists or the peace corps. Or that Communism was supposed to work in this specific brutal way. As I recall Stalin personally congratulated Churchill for destroying the left opposition in Greece after WWII (with the help of the US.)
And Ken Loach very passionately pointed out how the RUs tried to get control over the Communists in the Spanish Civil War in „Land and Freedom“. Since those leftists really meant it – democracy n stuff.
Adam Smith himself admitted that the entire economic system actually was rigged. But he believed in the benevolence of the capitalist class.
To understand how primitive our dominating economic model truly is, just look at the consequences for German industry after the destruction of Nordstream. That explains a lot how it all works. And in how far that Capitalist „Wunderkind“ really was a marvel or not rather just the product:
Of relentless force by the US (control over oil, killing left-wing movements in oil-rich countries).
Immense PR (car manufacturing and idolizing it and using FRG as „window“ to the West as British and East German living standards i.e. were not that different).
Heavy subsidies in very specific areas (pushing combustion engines and deprave alternative engines of money and destroy public transport in the US.)
This story repeats itself in almost every productive sector: just think agriculture – the EU – Africa.
“If you have absolute power over the people of the USSR, you don’t need personal property.”
More to the point, if your every need is provided for by the state, you don’t need any personal property. You don’t need to have been a dictator, you could been a soldier in Wellington’s army.
Max Blumenthal reported about Germany´s Die Linke report on UKR honoring Nazis.
The German government however is unwilling to acknowledge that report.
Blumenthal on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jungewelt/status/1707030437002989663?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1707983736367624670%7Ctwgr%5Ee12908451a3039b9a39eadf24641adefe0e0f801%7Ctwcon%5Es3_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nakedcapitalism.com%2F2023%2F10%2Flinks-10-1-2023.html
German MP Sevim Dagdelen´ s extensive German report on the affair:
“No findings of their own”
Documented: The German government is monosyllabic. Small inquiry of the Left Party in the Bundestag on the glorification of Stepan Bandera in Ukraine
https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/460156.ukraine-keine-eigenen-erkenntnisse.html
German newspaper article:
“Bandera’s clean slate
“Historical-political Super-desaster”: German government appears clueless with regard to historical Ukrainian fascism”
https://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/459881.ukraine-und-faschismus-banderas-wei%C3%9Fe-weste.html
p.s. And if you look at Blumenthal´s Twitter picture – that´s identical with the screwball scene in Chaplin´s “Great Dictator” (Hinkel´s and Napaloni´s arms colliding)
Sickening western msm reporting after socialdemocrat Robert Fico won the election in Slovakia, he speaks the truth about the Ukrainewar and seek to wind down the military aid for diplomacy and now he is hated throughout bloodlusting western europe.
In a video-interview he briefly mentioned how the war started:
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/33012
…and by pure coincidence the same day GB announces to escalate sending “advisors” and advising in questions of maritime warfare.
If one thing is sure the British establishment appears to be even dumber than the German, which is an accomplishment.
I am no friend of Medvedev´s primitive antics in communication – but this indeed is “Kretin”-like.
p.s. if one thing is sure, this war has proven that Art. 51 does not work. At least not within the framework of a useless and weakend UN.
Jack
Bloodlusting W Europe?
The propaganda pumped out by the Russian State media (there is no other media in Russia) is pretty bloodcurdling re Ukraine and Ukrainians.
https://youtube.com/@russianmediamonitor?si=7XwzqWGyQGnPMfFj
Not many Russian State approved voices calling for Russia to wind down its military…
Yes bloodlusting europe, have you missed the foaming warmongering MSM condemning Fico’s stance? Or just ask yourself, you agree with Fico about the war? Of course not , you want the war to continue, thus bloodlousting western europe. Get it?
Jack
Do you accept that the Russian State media (there is no other media in Russia) is pretty bloodcurdling re Ukraine and Ukrainians?
https://youtube.com/@russianmediamonitor?si=7XwzqWGyQGnPMfFj
As I thought, when running into inconvenient questions you try to divert the debate altogether. Sorry no time for such obvious sock-puppet trolling. Please do not reply to my comments further on on this site. Thanks!
Oh, I see russianmediamonitor 🙂 Julia Davis again 🙂
JK redux
whilst I do not whish to defend propaganda of any provenance It does sicken that the hatred against Russians and until recently much more against Arabs has been institutionalized in our entire cultural system. It is an intricate part of cultural production, in a way that is not even perceived as such.
And I would indeed state that in its depth and substance that is much worse. Of course I am not only talking about a couple of months or years but decades. And the basic design of this mindset has not changed.
Try to consume any popular Western media product (series! popular – political essays! intellectuals) broaching the issue of Russia/Russians or Arabs. What you will find is most likely fairy-tales and pure fiction. And the ever-repeated prejudice and clichés.
It´s so natural by now that we don´t recognize it as such any more. Just like the joke goes that I have quoted here before:
“US passenger next to RU passenger in a flight from Moscow to NY:
US: So why are you visiting the States?
RU: To study your propaganda system.
US, laughing: WHAT propaganda?!
RU: See, that´s what I´m talking about.”
I am certain the RU hate speech output is rather ugly. (No I don’t watch them, as I don’t watch US TV or any other TV). But at least every idiot KNOWS it’s propaganda.
In the USSR everyone knew it’s propaganda. But the real masters of propaganda are the ones who make it invisible.
Think back to 9/11 and how Arabs were treated in the US? And that was a single terrorist attack.
The US switched into war mode within 24 hours and decided to wipe out 2 nations and destroy entire regions. Because of that single day. Furthermore the entire West unleashed a hate campaign and enshrined it in laws in ways unheard of.
How many CIA agents were convicted for the global torture program by the CIA which Craig Murray as well uncovered? An operative by the name of John Kiriakou, for telling the truth.
Well, you know all this. But I wanted to point it out.
Jack
I’ll only comment on your posts if imo they warrant a reply.
Of course if the mods direct me to ignore them I will.
Sad to say, the Russian media clips are genuine.
Far more bloodthirsty than anything I have seen in the western media.
Which was the point of my post.
Tatyana
Are you saying that the Russian media clips are fake?
If not, please don’t shoot the messenger.
Julia Davis that is.
“Sad to say, the Russian media clips are genuine.”
Quite possibly, but they are supposed to be disinformation, i.e. not true.
“Far more bloodthirsty than anything I have seen in the western media.”
Russian Media Monitor IS western media. You don’t think it’s produced for the consumption of Russians, do you?
Your link doesn’t take you to any particular clip, so I looked at the first one on offer. It did not seem in the least bloodthirsty, nothing like some of the stuff coming out of the USA. (BTW, showing a clip of Russian TV with “Russian Disinfo” in the bottom right hand corner is childish in the extreme. I suppose Russian Media Monitor could be aimed at children still in primary school, but most teenagers and adults can make their own mind up as to whether something is disinfo or not. )
recommended reading – a new text by Chris Hedges:
“Why Our Popular Mass Movements Fail
The wave of global popular protests that erupted in 2010 and lasted a decade were extinguished. This means new tactics and new strategies, as Vincent Bevins explains in his book “If We Burn.”
https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/why-our-popular-mass-movements-fail?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=778851&post_id=137566742&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1i81oo&utm_medium=email