Crypto will crash leaving the little man out of pocket and Zelenski is a CIA plant . Currently I am 50% correct however in time I shall be 100% correct. Calling out Zelenski does not make me pro Putin , for the record, as I know many like to take sides in conflict. Not me tho . No siree. No war . Give peace a chance. No good guys in war.
So Churchill wasn’t a good guy? Nor Monty or the British troops trying to resist fascist invasion? Come off it. I can believe that of a fool like @iamofwfc but not you.
Actually, no. Churchill was a long way from a 'good guy'. A racist and imperialist Tory. "The Aryan stock is bound to triumph!" is a quote of his you don't see repeated so much today. Was it him or his father who ordered British troops to open fire on striking Welsh miners?
I remember my grandmother and grandfather often telling the tales of how, on many of Churchill's visits (three) to East End bombsites he was spat at (unthinkable behaviour in the 40's) and the 'crowd' he was filmed with was hand-picked. I was an ex-pat in Vilnius for many years and knew/worked with a lot of Americans (many from the Peace Corps who stayed when they pulled out). I was intrigued that many of them had done as part of their degree at College something called 'British Studies' and, unsurprisingly, 'Churchill' featured strongly in all the various college's curricula. I was gobsmacked to hear, from them, how strange it is to see how he's worshipped over here - he was a terrible politician (switching sides and useless in his role as chancellor), his political 'achievment' as arming university students/public schoolboys to act as auxiliaries during the general strike*, his 'war-horse' persona was another myth especially as his WWI Dardanelles' debacle (after which he 'rejoined' 'his regiment' for less than eighth months before quietly sloping back to parliament) was repeated in WWII with his fixation on the "...soft underbelly of Europe..." (Greece and its Islands and the Balkans) - with the loss of much British/Commonwealth blood and treasure and his fingers were all over the Norway and Singapore fiascos. He made numerous attempts to close down critical newspapers during the war and the main achievement of his post-war (post-Labour) government was that all of his hated innovations from the Festival of Britain in building the country anew were consigned to the dustbin of history. That's the problem with 'heroic and mythical figures' they generally become far more 'human' with all the normal foibles upon closer (historical) scrutiny. *ISTR that Durham University's Armstrong College (clue - it's not called that any more) was 'gifted' its Students Union building for the role its members took when 'combatting' the General Strike.
Not really the point I’m making, though I didn’t express it well. Yes, he was a *******, but wasn’t really relevant for supporting GB against Hitler. People like Davy, taking the view that Putin and Zelensky are as bad as each other, may feel differently with that simplistic view applied to their hero.
Again, this wasn’t really my point, which I didn’t express well. It should have been (to Davy) would you have applied this ‘both sides as bad as each other’ to Churchill, despite his (blindingly obvious and well known) flaws? I’m sure you are not on board with this moral equivalence of Zelensky and Putin, which is simply a way of denying support to Ukraine against the fascist invaders.
While there is no doubt that war allows evil people on all sides to carry out evil acts, that does not mean that the leaders are necessarily evil. In most conflicts there is an aggressor. And nations should always have the right to stand up to that aggression. I don't know if Zelinsky is a good person. I don't know if he is motivated by external political powers or personal financial gain. But I do know that Putin is solely responsible for the invasion and that definitely puts him in the evil chair in this conflict.
OK but I really should occasionally click [Show Ignored Content] so my posts are better targetted. FWIW I know a few meeja types (quite senior types) who openly claim they get frequent pitches for, exceptionally well- and thoroughly researched, "Churchill: Warts and All" type documentaries that are so politically/socially toxic they don't dare touch them.
Pretty obvious. If Ukraine and it’s leader had simply rolled over, refused to defend themselves, given up their sovereignty and various freedoms in favor of some Russification, there wouldn’t be any of this war which ol’ Davy finds so abhorant.
If you feel like joining in in the chorus, it's... In the meadow a red viburnum has bent down low Our glorious Ukraine has been troubled so And we’ll take that red viburnum and we will raise it up And we, our glorious Ukraine shall, hey – hey, rise up – and rejoice! And we’ll take that red viburnum and we will raise it up
I heard that R4 show too. Especially when the Floyd were mentioned - I can't help but feel that their involvement is some sort of 'atonement' for Waters's "White Helmet" outbursts...
Yes I heard it this morning. Worth catching on BBC sounds if you missed it. Floyd's version is stirring stuff, you must admit
Yes .Yes . Your view is taken from the tabloids isn't it ? . Don't believe what the tabloids say unless they say what you want them to say . Listen knucklehead . Putin is a warmonger. And so is your fanboy Zelenski.
Very long piece on "The Monaco Battalion". They're Ukrainian elite refugees who find time in their busy schedules of restaurants, casinos, shopping and buying yachts to re-register their refugee status with the French authorities on the Cote d'Azur.
As it says on the tin: the is Russian propaganda for domestic consumption: https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1600949478541828096
Any fans of "Command & Conquer"? Ad playing at every opportunity on St Peterburg's 5TV: https://www.reddit.com/r/UkraineWar...one_example_of_the_alarming_material_that_is/
Meanwhile the Russians have launched their counter-strike to getting thrown out the Eurovision song contest: https://twitter.com/francis_scarr/status/1604124392690163724
Very interesting thread looking at polling in Russian from one of Alexei Navalny's staffers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Navalny
Interesting piece with quotes from the actors who have been employed in these recruiting adverts: The Russians have even filmed a version of this:
Interesting. The Russian Army is once again setting off in a column (this time from the South) into the muddy winter. I wonder what the polling will look like if these become stuck in the mud and a sitting target once more?
New Russian TV ads: https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkra...u/a_new_generation_of_advertisements_for_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RussiaUkra...u1/new_russian_advertisement_for_the_military As a wag points out:
Very interesting article setting out how the Russian psyche is being manipulated over the war: In cold blood The new doctrine of the Russian government: people must be ready to die for it, otherwise their lives have no meaning I have to say that I don't agree with her take on 'gopnik' ('chav') culture - I think it's more a prison/thieves ('vory') culture as they had their own codes of behaviour and have always refused to acknowledge any form of authority other than their own. As an aside this self-glorification of the sh1t lives they have is nothing new. When I first went to Lithuania it was just starting to shrug-off the homo sovieticus mindset. Our Lithuanian peers (mid 20's) looked at 'us' westerners as uncultured weaklings. We didn't 'know' culture like they did (music, literature and, oddly, jazz) and couldn't 'take' the privations of daily life (vermin filled housing, limited food/goods in the shops, crumbling civic infrastructure, rampant incompetence and corruption) like they could - they wore it as some sort of badge of honour.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/22/video/russia-ukraine-bucha-massacre-takeaways.html Well recommend watching the video, incredible journalism and research.
Ad running virtually continually on Russian terrestrial (ie state-controlled) TV advertising the European feed of RT (that 'alternative voice' that @A_N_Other poster recommends): https://twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1606514093485080577
Very, very sobering opinion from the Russian home front: https://twitter.com/betelgeuse1922/status/1606249858926612485 Now someone further down the thread makes a very interesting, yet slightly incorrect, observation: I say slightly incorrect as, although it's widely reported that the Baltic States' claims for regaining their independence were catalysts for the break-up of the USSR, my Lithuanian wife always used to say that the catalyst for the Lithos taking action was news coming from an open armed rebellion for an autonomous region in one of the Soviet 'Stans (Azerbaijan?) who had been providing the majority of the cannon-fodder for the Red Army...
They've really nailed the Brummie vibe: https://twitter.com/Gerashchenko_en/status/1607656888979562496
Hootenanny Russian style. Like it or not, Russia is expanding! https://twitter.com/juliadavisnews/status/1609719192596381696?s=46&t=PsiYs6LnjD9IjsVQ0m8Jgw
Weirdly, those songs (and the ones in clips in the thread) are all Soviet-Era anthems... The Good Old Days indeed... And that tightly edited 'live' show would have been recorded in November at the latest (wife used to work in the Litho State LTV where they kept a number of Soviet practices - for their audience in the New Year's Spectacular were a lot of Lithuania's business elite who I used to teach and it used to take the best part of a day to record). EDIT:
