For me, a tyrant willing to use chemical weapons in our country and cyber attacks on our institutions declaring war on a neighbour is rather more pressing at this particular time, then the depressing necessity of having to work with another renowned oppressor. If Putin and Lukashenko are Adolf and Benito, I think we might need Uncle Joe Stalin on our side for a bit.
We are (rightly) outraged when countries we are not aligned with (Russia for example) kill other countries civilians but not when our mates do it with weapons made in this country.
Humans really are shitheads. Next life I'm coming back as a dolphin.....
@DevC I may be wrong, but I don't think the whole population of this great land, never mind the whole population of the Gasroom, supports Saudi Oppression or the bombing of civilians. I assume you mean our political masters who have been in the pockets of Russia, China and Saudi for some years now. I also assume you disavow both tyrants involved in the above?
Not all humans are shitheads, most are just trying to get by from day to day and most are simply wrapped up in their own affairs without wanting to face the challenges of righting centuries of geo-politics. The best we can do is to buy local as much as possible, travel local as much as possible, walk if we can and try to spare a thought for those poor footballers who are having to find the money for their own flights to Lille and Middlesborough over the coming week.
whataboutism is an endless rabbit hole that's best avoided, especially as if you really do follow that rabbit hole down eventually you realise that you live in the country with one of the worst historical human rights records on the planet and pointing at another country and saying "but look over there" is not the noble win you think it is.
Ps - looks like a consortium of American bankers (one of which owns the Chicago Cubs) is in the market to purchase Chelsea. Bankers are clean-living types without a stain on their records, no, wait …
@Ed_ said:
Ps - looks like a consortium of American bankers (one of which owns the Chicago Cubs) is in the market to purchase Chelsea. Bankers are clean-living types without a stain on their records, no, wait …
Not a lot of information online about this guy at first glance, which raises no alarm bells at all. Looking forward to the farcical fit-and-proper-person test results in the coming weeks.
Lets be honest we have a chequered history when it comes to how we treat our own far less others and many of our "national heroes" are (euphemistically) complicated (deeply flawed); for example Churchill loathed & despised Indians and was more than happy to let 21m of them die during the Bengal famine in 1943, we started and fueled the Atlantic slave trade (yes I know we were the first slaver nation to outlaw it too) and so it went on and still does with our support for Israel, Saudi Arabia & other dubious regimes; as well as our continued support of US imperialism. When you add to this the 10 years of worsening Tory corruption and theft we really are fucked as a country & any moral/ethical superiority we might have had has long evaporated.
Does this mean we give up? Of course not, but we do need viable alternatives to not only the Tories and Labour Party (who offer much the same), but also our whole world view and how we see our role and position in the world. Empire, thankfully, is long gone and now we are outside the EU we should be seeking a role in galvanising the non-aligned nations as well as being the bridge between West & East.
Agree @Erroll_Sims which calls for selfless, forward thinking, innovative committed statesmen and women who want to actually do some good. My breath is not held.
@drcongo said:
whataboutism is an endless rabbit hole that's best avoided, especially as if you really do follow that rabbit hole down eventually you realise that you live in the country with one of the worst historical human rights records on the planet and pointing at another country and saying "but look over there" is not the noble win you think it is.
I find Whataboutists struggle with the possibility that two or more regimes can be awful at the same time it sometimes seems to me that asking certain posters to condemn both the Saudis and Putin as murderous criminals is the equivalent of forcing them lick their own elbows
@Erroll_Sims said:
Lets be honest we have a chequered history when it comes to how we treat our own far less others and many of our "national heroes" are (euphemistically) complicated (deeply flawed); for example Churchill loathed & despised Indians and was more than happy to let 21m of them die during the Bengal famine in 1943, we started and fueled the Atlantic slave trade (yes I know we were the first slaver nation to outlaw it too) and so it went on and still does with our support for Israel, Saudi Arabia & other dubious regimes; as well as our continued support of US imperialism. When you add to this the 10 years of worsening Tory corruption and theft we really are fucked as a country & any moral/ethical superiority we might have had has long evaporated.
Does this mean we give up? Of course not, but we do need viable alternatives to not only the Tories and Labour Party (who offer much the same), but also our whole world view and how we see our role and position in the world. Empire, thankfully, is long gone and now we are outside the EU we should be seeking a role in galvanising the non-aligned nations as well as being the bridge between West & East.
Heroes are usually flawed Ghandi was a racist, Mandela was a terrorist, JFK was a philanderer as was Martin Luther King, I like Shackleton although he was an alcoholic which makes it a little ironic that they named a whiskey after him,
It''s not who you condemn - Putin/Saudia Arabia/Churchcill, take your pick - that defines you as a human being. It's how you act towards those fellow humans who's lives you are able to affect that matters.
Comments
For me, a tyrant willing to use chemical weapons in our country and cyber attacks on our institutions declaring war on a neighbour is rather more pressing at this particular time, then the depressing necessity of having to work with another renowned oppressor. If Putin and Lukashenko are Adolf and Benito, I think we might need Uncle Joe Stalin on our side for a bit.
Funny old world isn't it.
We are (rightly) outraged when countries we are not aligned with (Russia for example) kill other countries civilians but not when our mates do it with weapons made in this country.
Humans really are shitheads. Next life I'm coming back as a dolphin.....
I wonder if Johnson and bin Salman are comparing who has the most blood on their hands.
@DevC I may be wrong, but I don't think the whole population of this great land, never mind the whole population of the Gasroom, supports Saudi Oppression or the bombing of civilians. I assume you mean our political masters who have been in the pockets of Russia, China and Saudi for some years now. I also assume you disavow both tyrants involved in the above?
Not all humans are shitheads, most are just trying to get by from day to day and most are simply wrapped up in their own affairs without wanting to face the challenges of righting centuries of geo-politics. The best we can do is to buy local as much as possible, travel local as much as possible, walk if we can and try to spare a thought for those poor footballers who are having to find the money for their own flights to Lille and Middlesborough over the coming week.
whataboutism is an endless rabbit hole that's best avoided, especially as if you really do follow that rabbit hole down eventually you realise that you live in the country with one of the worst historical human rights records on the planet and pointing at another country and saying "but look over there" is not the noble win you think it is.
Ps - looks like a consortium of American bankers (one of which owns the Chicago Cubs) is in the market to purchase Chelsea. Bankers are clean-living types without a stain on their records, no, wait …
Dolphins are really humans in disguise Dev?
https://www.ranker.com/list/dark-facts-about-dolphins/lee-emjay
Saudis too https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/chelsea-takeover-saudi-media-abramovich-26463764
Not a lot of information online about this guy at first glance, which raises no alarm bells at all. Looking forward to the farcical fit-and-proper-person test results in the coming weeks.
Lets be honest we have a chequered history when it comes to how we treat our own far less others and many of our "national heroes" are (euphemistically) complicated (deeply flawed); for example Churchill loathed & despised Indians and was more than happy to let 21m of them die during the Bengal famine in 1943, we started and fueled the Atlantic slave trade (yes I know we were the first slaver nation to outlaw it too) and so it went on and still does with our support for Israel, Saudi Arabia & other dubious regimes; as well as our continued support of US imperialism. When you add to this the 10 years of worsening Tory corruption and theft we really are fucked as a country & any moral/ethical superiority we might have had has long evaporated.
Does this mean we give up? Of course not, but we do need viable alternatives to not only the Tories and Labour Party (who offer much the same), but also our whole world view and how we see our role and position in the world. Empire, thankfully, is long gone and now we are outside the EU we should be seeking a role in galvanising the non-aligned nations as well as being the bridge between West & East.
Agree @Erroll_Sims which calls for selfless, forward thinking, innovative committed statesmen and women who want to actually do some good. My breath is not held.
I find Whataboutists struggle with the possibility that two or more regimes can be awful at the same time it sometimes seems to me that asking certain posters to condemn both the Saudis and Putin as murderous criminals is the equivalent of forcing them lick their own elbows
Heroes are usually flawed Ghandi was a racist, Mandela was a terrorist, JFK was a philanderer as was Martin Luther King, I like Shackleton although he was an alcoholic which makes it a little ironic that they named a whiskey after him,
It''s not who you condemn - Putin/Saudia Arabia/Churchcill, take your pick - that defines you as a human being. It's how you act towards those fellow humans who's lives you are able to affect that matters.
Dolphins aren't very nice to porpoises...
But are they unkind by accident?
No
So they do it on porpoise?
I fell for that one.
You're the Ernie Wise to his Eric Morecambe
https://www.irishexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/arid-40831310.html
Interesting article
Superb thread